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RELIGION AND LIFE 



RELIGION AND 
LIFE 



A Year Book of Short Sermons 
On Some Phase of the Christian Life 
For Every Week in the Year 



BY THE 



REV. JULIAN K. SMYTH 

■ Author of Footprints of the Saviour, tHoly Names, &c. 



* 



NEW YORK 
NEW-CHURCH BOARD OF PUBLICATION 

1911 



Copyright, ign, by i 

NEW- CHURCH BOARD OF PUBLICATION 



Preis of J. J. Little & Ives Co. 

New York 



)CI.A30:J^40 



PREFACE 

The term "Religion' ' is found associated with 
many things, which, while having their own spe- 
cial field of activity and interest, are not proof 
against the incoming of a spirit, distinctly dif- 
ferent, indeed, but radiating an influence and hav- 
ing a power of interpretation which make its en- 
trance not an intrusion but a visitation worthy of 
welcome. Men shut themselves up with their 
own concerns in some of the close rooms of this 
world's life; oftentimes they push the bolts lest 
they should be disturbed by forces and interests 
from without, when, lo, without any visible 
movement in space, no breach made in the walls, 
they become aware of a Presence, which, as on 
that first Easter night, has quietly passed in, "the 
doors being shut." 

In the belief that the religion of the Lord Jesus 
is as pervasive, as friendly, and as illuminating as 
He proved Himself to be on that memorable 
evening, it is not strange that efforts should be 
made to bring the truths of His Gospel into rela- 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

tion with special human interests, and that trea- 
tises should be written on Religion and Philo- 
sophy, Religion and Science, Religion and Art, 
Religion and Business, Religion and Medicine, 
and so on. I venture to send forth this volume 
under the title Religion and Life based on the 
simple proposition formulated years ago by an 
illumined scribe : 

"All Religion has relation to the Life: 
And the life of Religion is to do good." 

The aim of the book is as simple as its title : 
it is to bring from the great Book of Life les- 
sons and interpretations which may be helpful to 
its readers in the effort to bring religion into the 
affairs of every-day living. The sermons are con- 
densations of discourses which I have preached; 
and in order to emphasize the need of applying 
spiritual truth from the beginning of the year 
right through to its end, they have been arranged 
one for each week. 
New York City, November, 191 1. 

J. K. S. 



CONTENTS 



Jan. page 

1st Week How the Great Love Came i 

2d Week Why the Manna Could not Be Kept 9 

3d Week Every Man's Problem: Himself . .16 

4th Week In the Days of Our Youth ... 22 

Feb. 

5th Week The Mighty Man of Mischief . . 27 

6th Week A Man after God's Own Heart . . 33 

7th Week True Greatness ...... 39 



8th Week 
March 
9th Week 
10th Week 
11th Week 
12th Week 
13th Week 

April 
14th Week 



15th Week 
16th Week 
17th Week 

May 
18th Week 
19th Week 
20th Week 
21st Week 

June 
22d Week 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 
1. How He Came 48 



2. The Entrance upon His Ministry 

3. The Judean Ministry . 

4. The Galilean Ministry 

5. The Per^ean Ministry . 

6. The Final Offer .... 



The Great Triumph . 
A New Immortality . 
The Gates of the City 



The Search of the Angels 

1. The Watch of the Cherubim 

2. The Help of the Cherubim 
The Crown of Pride . 



53 
59 
66 

72 
77 



7. Having Part in the First Resurrec- 
tion 



Eternal Youth 



82 

90 

96 

101 

106 

113 
118 

125 
131 



IX 



X 



CONTENTS 



June 
23d Week 
24th Week 
25th Week 
26th Week 

July 
27th Week 
28th Week 
29th Week 
30th Week 

Aug. 
31st Week 
32d Week 
33d Week 
34th Week 

Sept. 
35th Week 
36th Week 
37th Week 
38th Week 
39th Week 

Oct. 
40th Week 
41st Week 
42d Week 
43d Week 

Nov. 
44th Week 
45th Week 
46th Week 
47th Week 

Dec. 

48th Week 
49th Week 
50th Week 
51st Week 
52d Week 



PAGE 

That Dreamer! 136 

The House of Fragrance . . .143 
The Sacrament of Peace . . . .149 
The Problem of a Life Inclined to Evil 155 



A Wonderful Struggle . 
The Transfigured Face . 
The Fate of Some Visions 
Work Out Your Ideals . 



. 163 

. 169 

. 176 

. 182 



188 



Passing through the Enemy's Country 

The Four Girdles 195 

Man the Angel 202 

The Gospel and the Poor . . . 208 



The Right of Decision 
The Cloud that Tarried . 
The Cross and the Disciple . 

1. The Brotherhood of the Tempted 

2. The Heroism of the Brotherhood 



214 
222 

228 

234 
241 



The Hushed Voice 247 

The Altars and the Birds . . . 252 

Miraculous Signs of Power . . . 259 

Spiritual Sight 266 

Spiritual Hearing 271 

The Sacred Power of Memory . . 276 

Tested 283 

The Dread of Pain and Struggle, and 

Its Penalty 288 

1. The Footpath to God .... 295 

2. The Footpath to Humanity . .301 
The Question of an Anxious Soul . 308 
The Return of the Shepherds . . 316 
The Shadow on the Dial . . . 3 2 3 



Religion and Life 



i.— HOW THE GREAT LOVE CAME. 

"And in the morning the dew lay round about the camp. 
And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon 
the face of the wilderness a small round thing, small as 
the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children 
of Israel saw it, they said one to another : Manhu (what is 
it?) for they wist not what it was. And Moses said, It 
is the bread which Jehovah hath given you to eat." — Ex. 
XVK13-15. 

When a nation was going hungry, and parents 
were wondering how they were to find something 
for their children to eat, and old and young were 
questioning whether a great mistake had not been 
made in leaving Egypt, a land of material plenty, 
God gave a sign. It was more than a sign. It 
was an answer to a people's prayers for some- 
thing by which to live. The hosts of Israel had 
gone to bed hungry. In every tent there were 
murmurings and misgivings. As ever, the dew 
distilled that night; and when men arose, the 
same gracious phenomenon of nature met their 
eyes. The ground had silently been covered with 

I 



2 RELIGION AND LIFE 

a filmy veil. But as the dew melted; behold, a 
small round thing like bits of hoar frost covered 
the earth ! Men peered at this new sight, and they 
said to each other: "Manhu — (what is it?)" 
They put it to their hungry lips, and lo, it was 
sweet and wholesome. It was food; it was like 
bread ! They had not sown, nor planted, nor har- 
vested, nor baked; yet surely it was bread! It 
had come in answer to their prayers. How good 
God was ! There was not a day of the week in all 
the after days of their wanderings that the manna 
failed them. It came as surely and as unpreten- 
tiously as the dew. The people never had to 
worry for their food. Though at evening their 
store might be gone, they knew by weeks, and 
months, and then years of experience that in the 
morning they would have their daily bread. All 
they would have to do would be to go out and 
gather it, every man "according to his eating." 
He who wanted but little found that little suf- 
ficient; he who wanted much was never disap- 
pointed. 

What an object lesson it was of God's merci- 
ful care! For forty years the miracle of the 
manna was maintained. Did the spiritual truth 
within it all, of the infinite willingness and ability 
to sustain their higher natures, ever break 
through this tender miracle of food? Did the 
miracle become a commonplace, as so many bless- 
ings in our lives — blessings of love and Provi- 
dential care, which surround us week after week 



HOW THE GREAT LOVE CAME 3 

— lose their strangeness and their glory, and are 
taken as a matter of course because we live from 
them so habitually? Years afterwards, when 
distance had lent a little enchantment to the view, 
a Psalmist, in retrospect of this period of his 
people's history, summed it up in the phrase : 
"They did eat angels' food." There is something 
more than poetic fancy in the statement. It has 
a basis of fact : for we are assured that the 
manna was nothing less than food existent in the 
spiritual world clothed upon by natural sub- 
stances. If this is true, how wonderful was this 
experience of the Israelites; men sharing the 
food of angels as though they were brothers, and 
for years fed from the same table! 

And then we try to think of the deeper ele- 
ment in this incident. What does it mean that 
our Lord, in fulfilment of prophecy, should be 
born in Bethlehem? For Bethlehem, means 
House of Bread. And as if to emphasize the 
thought that in some way the life of the Lord 
was to be the spiritual food of man, the Christ- 
child was laid in a manger. And if any should 
say in their hearts : "Is it not going a little far 
to think that the Lord's life can be as essential 
to men as bread?" it is recorded that He Him- 
self associated the life of His Humanity in the 
world with this miracle of the manna, and spoke 
of it in such a way that it is clear that to His 
eyes it testified of Him. For He said: "Your 
fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are 



4 RELIGION AND LIFE 

dead; this is the bread that cometh down from 
heaven that men may eat thereof and not die." 
Thus the incident of old came before His eyes, 
not as a marvel simply, but as a prophecy of 
which He was the fulfilment. The miracle had 
come down as a tradition of which the people 
were intensely proud. They clung to the recol- 
lection of the literal event; the bits of substance 
like hoar frost on the ground; men's wonder- 
ment, and then their joy when they found that 
it was something that would nourish them and 
their families. But here in very life was a 
parallel situation, only on a spiritual plane : peo- 
ple, whose inner natures were poorly fed, find- 
ing in Him that for which their spirits craved. 
He fulfilled their ideals; He answered the deep- 
est desires of their hearts. Something about Him 
touched them, satisfied them. Through Him 
there came to them the power of a new life. 
They loved His presence. They devoured His 
words. He seemed to be able to nourish the bet- 
ter nature within them. 

The Lord understood all this. It must have 
been a joy to Him even more than to them. The 
goodness of His life was as food to these hun- 
gry men. He lived that it might be so. And 
not for them only, but to as many as should re- 
ceive Him. "If any man eat of this bread," He 
declared, "he shall live forever." It was an as- 
tonishing parallelism to draw; and the beauty of 
it is that it is so self-evidently true. 



HOW THE GREAT LOVE CAME 5 

Take the disciples for instance. They were 
not deeply spiritual men at first. They certainly 
were not trained men theologically. They were 
clumsy in their affection, loving the wrong things 
at times, getting the wrong perspective. The 
Lord Himself said they were slow of under- 
standing. Still they were aware that they had 
come upon something that was essential to their 
highest welfare. They loved and believed to the 
best of their ability. And they did it in down- 
right fashion. They did it with their whole na- 
ture, and not from some abstract principle of be- 
lief. It had to do with everything they did. 
They must not be covetous ; they must not exalt 
themselves ; they must not bear each other malice ; 
they must not be idlers ; they must do unto others 
as they would be done by; they must be patient 
under trial ; they must be forgiving under perse- 
cution ; they must not harbor impure thoughts or 
desires ; they must be just and upright, loving one 
another. Why ? They were in the presence, not 
of some mysterious cult, nor of some philosophy 
too high for their plain minds to understand, but 
of perfect life. He was there! Love itself; 
Wisdom itself; Life of their life; the Word made 
flesh, revealing Himself in simple deeds, in daily 
companionship, in personal acts of kindness and 
self-sacrifice, in ministries of grace — kind words 
spoken, a ready hand outstretched. 

Why should we make such a mystery, or such 
an abstract thing of all this? Why should we 



6 RELIGION AND LIFE 

think of it as our religion, and then treat it as 
if it were a thing apart from what we are actually 
doing and saying? Why do we call it our re- 
ligion—something which we pray God to keep 
pure and undefiled — and then go on in courses of 
life in which it has no part at all? If we are not 
kind, if we are not just, if we are not sympa- 
thetic, if we are not treating man as a brother, if 
we are not trying to minister instead of being 
ministered unto, if we are not forgiving those 
who trespass against us, but hold them in con- 
tempt or bitterness, if we go about our work 
driven by a feeling of necessity, or with no higher 
motive than that of self-interest — if this be our 
way, and people have cause to think of us as 
selfish, or uncharitable, or exacting, what right 
have we to think that the Great Love has come to 
us, no matter how true the religion may be to 
which we nominally subscribe ? 

Oh, we need to come back to the primal truth ; 
the Lord the food of man. His being born in 
Bethlehem, the house of Bread, and laid in a 
manger is the touching answer to the hunger of 
the human heart. For the heart does hunger. It 
hungers for sympathy, companionship, love. In 
its higher moods it hungers for righteousness. 
And here is a sign that God is aware of this hun- 
ger, and puts forth His love to answer it: the 
ground covered with morsels of bread which have 
come with the silence of the dew. His sym- 
pathy, His great loving kindness, renewed every 



HOW THE GREAT LOVE CAME 7 

morning; revealed at length in its fulness in the 
actual life of Him, who, in His Infinite Love and 
Wisdom, could say : "I am the living Bread that 
came down from heaven. If any man eat of 
this Bread, he shall live forever." 

Here is the answer to the prayer He Himself 
has taught us to pray: "Give us this day our 
daily bread.' ' And the sign of it centuries be- 
fore was so suggestive! With ground shining 
as with hoar frost, men were told that he who 
gathered but little should experience no lack ; and 
that to him that gathered much there should be 
no waste. Only there must be some notice taken 
of it every day; some use made of a food so 
mercifully given, and so strangely sensitive that 
when the sun was up it melted. How plain the 
meaning is ! How much a little of the Christ-love 
will do for us if we really try to live by it ! And if 
the hunger for His righteousness be deep, can we 
exhaust it? It is daily strength for daily needs. 
Herein lies the virtue as well as wonder of it; 
for unless it is used it is soon dissipated. Each 
day to be offered the saving help of the Divine 
Love that is not too great to minister to our 
simplest or our direst need! Something to live 
by; religion in life. 



"New every morning is Thy love, 
Our wakening and uprising prove; 
Through sleep and darkness safely brought, 
Restored to life, and power, and thought. 



8 RELIGION AND LIFE 

New mercies each returning day 

Hover around us while we pray; 

New perils past, new sins forgiven, 

New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven. 

* * * 

Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love 
Fit us for perfect rest above; 
And help us this and every day, 
To live more nearly as we pray." 

— Keble's Christian Year. 



2 ._WHY THE MANNA COULD NOT BE 
KEPT. 

"And Moses said unto them, Let no man leave of it until 
the morning." — Ex. xvi:i9. 

When the Israelites saw the divinely-given 
substance which was to keep them alive glisten- 
ing on the ground, all they could say was 
"Manna!" "What is it?" It was something 
new. It had come in the darkness and the still- 
ness of the night. It had come as God's answer 
to their hunger. At first the dew concealed it. 
They and their children got up with the same tor- 
menting pangs of hunger. All around the camp 
the wilderness lay bathed in dew. But as the 
dew vanished, behold, the ground was covered 
with little white morsels. What could it mean? 
What were these round bits about the size of 
coriander seeds? How had they come there? 
What were they for? The whole camp was 
stirred into excitement. And Moses arose, and 
he said: "It is the bread which Jehovah hath 
given you to eat." Food in the wilderness! 
How wonderful and exciting that morning must 
have been ! Would such a day ever come again ? 
And then they were told that in just this same 

9 



io RELIGION AND LIFE 

peaceful way God would % continue to give them 
their daily bread. 

Religion says : "Your greatest, your essential 
need is spiritual good." "Spiritual good!" cries 
the man of the world; "spiritual good! Manna! 
What is it?" He does not think of it as any- 
thing substantial. He would be puzzled to define 
it. He knows the joys of material prosperity. 
He knows the delight of natural success. He 
knows the satisfaction of being well thought of. 
But spiritual good? Manna! The greatness of 
humility; the joy of self-sacrifice; the unremit- 
ting sense of a Divine leadership; doing good, 
not for the sake of reward or applause, but be- 
cause it is of God and from God; refusing evil, 
not from fear of detection, nor for self-interest, 
but because of an interior principle, which, ris- 
ing above all personal considerations, declares : 
"God has forbidden it ; to do it is to sin against 
Him." 

So this good from heaven, which, in order 
that its essential character might be emphasized, 
God set before men under the symbol of actual 
food, is regarded. So men think of it as some- 
thing so remote from what they consider to be 
their actual needs, that they feel under no ne- 
cessity to even understand it. And yet the Lord 
by a miracle, and in the even greater wonder of 
His Divinely-human Person, has urged it upon 
us as something of which we must be partak- 
ers, or we shall die spiritually, as surely as men 



WHY MANNA COULD NOT BE KEPT 1 1 

who refuse to eat natural food would pine away 
and die physically. He has chosen to represent 
this spiritual good under the strongest figure pos- 
sible: to the soul of a man it is food. Alas, for 
his spiritual health, his higher efficiency, his in- 
ward contentment and peace, his very life, if he 
has no taste for it and never eats of it ! Will a 
man starve his soul to death ? 

How strong this symbol of God is! And think 
how He has enforced it. It was not simply on 
some one occasion that He caused the manna to 
descend, calling men's attention to it and saying : 
"See : spiritual good is like this food which has 
come down from heaven and which covers the 
ground." That would have been wonderful. 
But day after day the lesson was repeated ! Week 
after week, month after month, year after year 
the small white bread came with the dew as if 
the lesson, which the food thus given was in- 
tended to teach, could not be repeated too 
often. 

Its essential nature was still further empha- 
sized by the regulation that it must be gathered 
every day. It was to be regarded as daily bread. 
If men gathered it and tried to hold it over, it 
lost its good quality. Worms soon appeared in 
it and it became offensive. 

The truth here represented is aimed at such a 
common failing! Spiritual good is something 
that has to enter into our life every day, or it 
will soon lose its soundness. God presents it to 



12 RELIGION AND LIFE 

us as food, and we cannot simply fill ourselves 
with it at some one time and then think that this 
is going to answer. The religious life will never 
thrive in us in that way: and if we try to take 
our spiritual nourishment in that way, not only 
will it lose its wholesomeness, but we shall come 
to have a positive aversion for it. 

Apply this to a few familiar things: the 
habit, for instance, of prayer and of reading a 
little from the Bible every day. If God is the 
source of our life, if the Bible is His Word, 
and, when read reverently, brings one into asso- 
ciation with the heavens, what more reasonable 
thing to do than for a few moments each day to 
speak to the Lord in prayer, or to gain some mes- 
sage from His Word in response to the heart's 
petition: "Open thou mine eyes, that I may be- 
hold wondrous things out of Thy law" ? And yet 
experience will tell us that it is only when we do 
these things regularly — as regularly as we eat 
our natural food — that the manna keeps sound. 
It is when we try to keep it over that we turn 
against it. "I prayed the other day; I read a 
chapter from the Bible then ; let that suffice for a 
time." When that is our way, the manna soon 
spoils. "Let no man leave of it until the morn- 
ing." 

How often you hear a man say: "I had so 
much religion when I was young, that now I 
have no taste for it." Sometimes he adds with 
a laugh, that he had enough of it during those 



WHY MANNA COULD NOT BE KEPT 13 

few years to last him for the rest of his life. 
He tells you how pious his father and mother 
were ; how they always had family prayers ; how 
he was taught to read his Bible every day; and 
when Sunday came he had to go to Church and 
he had to go to Sunday-school. Oh, how the 
manna came down through the days of his child- 
hood! And many a man makes this an excuse 
for having forsaken his Church, for having 
dropped the habit of prayer, for never opening 
his Bible. He really thinks his parents were to 
blame. 

Ah, the man does not know! This story of 
the manna is a true story, as the experience of 
many a man will show. The bread from heaven 
has to be gathered continually if it is to do us 
any good. To have gathered it once and not 
continue in the use of it is to lose it. With al- 
most fatal swiftness it gets stale. False and 
injurious things creep in. It gets defiled through 
evils that are in ourselves. Presently, we hardly 
know how or why, we turn from and then turn 
against religious things. We do more than neg- 
lect them, we criticise them; we question their 
efficacy; we imagine ourselves to be superior to 
forms of spiritual good so simple; we develop 
singular notions about what is best for us; we 
will not make common cause with others with 
whom we once found it good to gather our daily 
bread; we become a law unto ourselves; our 
brethren in the Church find us unhelpful, either 



i 4 RELIGION AND LIFE 

utterly indifferent, the old interest gone, or else 
maintaining some kind of religion of our own 
in a spirit of superior singularity. 

The plain truth is, we have turned against the 
manna, which, for a time, sustained us so well. 
It is there still : simple, "small as the hoar frost 
on the ground/' given day after day in infinite 
kindness and abundance. Others are gathering 
it and are being sustained by it; but the pot of 
manna in our house — well, it is pleasant food 
no longer. 

The reason is obvious. Religion is of the life. 
Christian principles and graces, such as unselfish- 
ness, humility, the spirit of forgiveness, doing to 
others as we would be done by, patience, sym- 
pathy, charity, — these are not things that we can 
taste, as it were, occasionally. It is true, indeed, 
that they are not given to us and made our 
own in their fullness all at once. Slowly does 
the soul grow strong and rich in qualities like 
these. But we shall never really love them or 
acquire them through spasmodic efforts. These 
forms of spiritual good are the manna; and the 
manna is only good when a little of it is gath- 
ered and eaten every day. Every day to remem- 
ber our Christian calling and try to do something 
unselfish, to be modest, to forgive, to be fair, to 
be patient, to show sympathy, to be charitable. 
Like morsels of bread descended from heaven, 
the Lord gives us this food. "Eat of it," He 



WHY MANNA COULD NOT BE KEPT i^ 

says, "and your souls shall live. Make it your 
daily bread. Gather it every day, every man 
according to his eating. Let no man leave of it 
until the morning. " 



3.— EVERY MAN'S PROBLEM : HIMSELF. 

"And God said: I do set My bow in the cloud, . . . 
and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and 
you and every living creature of all flesh." — Gen. ix:i3-i5. 

Here are two things: a cloud, and a bow of 
light in the cloud. The cloud is the natural ele- 
ment in a man's life, darkened by falsities and 
unbelief which seem ready at any time to deluge 
his world.'' But the bow of light, so wonderful, so 
unexpected, suddenly flushing everything with 
color and beauty and signalling its message of 
safety — this is God's exquisite sign of His in- 
finite friendliness and saving power, by which a 
man's nature may be kept from evil and bright- 
ened by new life. 

The Divine within the human, the spiritual 
within the natural : — that is the great message 
of the Bible. The message is one that is intended 
to steady man's mind, to gladden his heart, to 
put strength into his hands. He is to raise the 
eyes of his mind to that truth, wonderingly, be- 
lievingly, and let his soul take deep breath, and 
feel that life is great and not little; that be its 
circumstances what they may, the element of 
eternal life may shine within them and glorify 

16 



EVERY MAN'S PROBLEM : HIMSELF 17 

them. That sweep of col or in the sky at first so 
faint, but deepening and deepening until it arches 
above him a miracle of beauty, quietly proclaim- 
ing its gospel of hope and forgiveness — a man 
is to look at that and say : "The Lord has asked 
me to remember that it is the sign of the indwell- 
ing of His spirit, of the tender mercy which is 
over all His works, of the fact of forgiveness to 
every contrite heart, and of salvation and new- 
ness of life promised to every one who will turn 
from his selfishness, his worldliness, or his sin, 
and live." 

Let us hold firmly in our mind the two things 
represented by the cloud and the bow in the 
cloud, as we try now to consider the first of the 
"problems which confront every man. The first 
thing which confronts every man is HIMSELF. 
Cut the w r ord down: Self. Self! that strang- 
est, most obvious, most persistent thing about 
every man; the sense, not simply of existence, 
but of being; of a something which for good or 
for ill insists on being itself; which claims the 
right to say "I" ; which will stand any amount 
of schooling, of struggling, of outward changes, 
of hardship and blows, and yet persist as stoutly 
in claiming an inviolable ownership of itself, and 
of all that it feels, or thinks, or does! The most 
persistent thing in all the world! The hardest 
thing to "down"! We all of us have it; none 
of us asked for it. It is the cause of nearly all 
our troubles and failures ; and yet who shall pre- 



18 RELIGION AND LIFE 

sume to deprive us of it? Through inheritance 
it conies to us in a form in which we love it. 
We love this fact of self. Our physical senses 
are in league with it, and its sway is despotic. 
Give it full bent, and there is no limit to which 
its claims and demands will not go. The whole 
habit of the mind, the determinations of the 
will, start automatically from this principle of 
self. Even the kind, useful and dutiful acts we 
may do have in them that which says involun- 
tarily : "My power, and the might of my hand." 

It is so easy to come into this habit of mind! 
And the longer this inherited self has its way, 
the harder it becomes to move it ; the more insen- 
sible it becomes to anything of a spiritual na- 
ture; and the more impossible seems that jubilant 
experience of the apostle: "I live, yet not I; 
but Christ liveth in me !" Or yet again when he 
cries : "Work out your own salvation with fear 
and trembling ; for it is God who worketh in you 
both to will and to work, for His good pleasure." 

The whole problem of our selfhood may be 
said to be summed up in those few words. It is 
stated in the book of "Deuteronomy" where 
man's boast of what he has done by his own 
power is met by the divine admonition : "Thou 
shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is He 
that giveth thee power to get wealth." It is 
formulated as a rule of life in the teaching of 
the Church : "Man is to do good as of him- 
self; nevertheless, in the acknowledgment and 



EVERY MAN'S PROBLEM: HIMSELF 19 

belief that the will and the power to do so are 
of the Lord." 

In all these instances the two elements are 
there : the consciousness which the Lord makes 
possible of willing and acting as if by our own 
power; and a living acknowledgment of the 
deeper truth that both the power and the inspira- 
tion to do good are from Him. The deepest dan- 
ger of our lives lies in being indifferent to this 
last fact, hardening our hearts against it, or re- 
garding it as a form of sheer idealism which is 
of no very serious importance. 

Let us not be deceived. There is nothing that 
determines so surely the essential quality of a 
man's life and character clear down to its depths, 
below all seemings or disguises, as just this: 
whether one believes and acts from self, ascrib- 
ing to self the good that one does, the truth that 
one knows, virtues and talents which one may 
have, with never a thought of the higher power 
whence these things are; or whether one learns 
as a principle of faith and tries to remember in 
actual life this truth : that anything of goodness, 
or of wisdom, or of ability, or of success, or 
of blessing, which one has been allowed to think 
of and enjoy as his own, has been made possible 
through the infinite resourcefulness and goodness 
of the spirit of the living God operating in him 
and by means of him. 

These two ways of meeting life are utterly 
different, and their results are different. In the 



20 RELIGION AND LIFE 

one case one goes on living the life of his natural 
selfhood, with all its inherited tendencies, the 
range of its efforts, its beliefs, its aspirations 
fixed to the plane of the natural mind and life. 
In the other, one receives a new element, some- 
thing that lifts him out of that lower selfhood 
into one that is gradually formed of God. Re- 
member the sign of the bow in the cloud. Re- 
member the beautiful teaching of the Church 
that if a man will compel himself to resist evil 
and falsity and do good, the Lord will introduce 
into his life an element of heavenly love, forming 
by degrees a new self with new thoughts, new 
affections, new purposes. They within whom this 
new self is formed are by degrees enlightened; 
and they see, and rejoice to see more and more 
clearly, that they live from a power not their own, 
although God in His mercy allows it to appear 
to be such. And it is a further teaching that as 
one advances in the life of this new self, one 
ceases to think of himself in all that he does, or 
learns, or teaches, but rather he thinks of "the 
neighbor, the public, the Church, the Lord's 
Kingdom, and thus the Lord Himself." And 
this, we are assured, brings quiet and peace, for 
then one comes, "to trust in the Lord, and to 
believe that nothing of evil can happen." And 
one thing more : such come into a new and 
higher state of freedom; for (and these words 
which I quote are worth remembering) "to be 
led by the Lord is freedom itself; for such are 
led in good, from good, to good." 



EVERY MAN'S PROBLEM: HIMSELF 21 

How wonderful are all these assurances of the 
building up of a new, a more heavenly self! As 
wonderful, as beautiful, as God's sign of it in 
nature; the bow of light in the cloud. To some 
of us still listening at times to the boastings of 
our inherited self, feeling it tugging at us, caught 
so often in its delusions, truths like these may 
seem almost too good to be true. But this 
must not be. The bow in the cloud is not only 
an object of beauty, but a promise : "a covenant 
(God says) between Me and you and every liv- 
ing creature of all flesh." And that means it is 
possible. It is possible for every one if he will 
do his part. Disappointments, temptations, be- 
reavements are permitted that by means of them 
we may come to recognize evil more clearly, and 
see new truths and experience new affections. 
And if we are in the right endeavor, God makes 
use of all these things in the building up of a 
new nature, one that will not keep muttering "I," 
but raising its eyes will learn to say with even 
greater assurance "Thou." 

"Thou, Lord, seest me; 

Thou knowest my down-sitting and my up-rising; 
Thou understandest my thought afar off; 
Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, 
And art acquainted with all my ways. 

* % * * * * 

How precious are Thy thoughts unto me, O God ! 

How great is the sum of them ! 

If I should count them, they are more in number than the 

sand ; 
When I awake, I am still with Thee." 



4.— IN THE DAYS OF OUR YOUTH. 

"He shall be as a wild-ass man : his hand shall be against 
every man, and every man's hand against him. ,, — Gen. 
xvi:i2. 

There is something very touching in the story 
of the lad Ishmael, to whom these words refer. 
He was born into Abraham's household. He had 
a right to be there. But his mother, Hagar, 
was an Egyptian. He turned out to be what it 
was said he would be : one who mocked. He 
was discovered when but a lad mocking Isaac, 
Abraham's true son and heir. He made himself 
unbearable, and in the end he had to be sent 
forth. 

That familiar episode, taken as a parable, tells 
such a wonderful story of the fortunes of the 
first natural reason born in the days of our 
youth! The representation is one which almost 
declares itself. The lad Ishmael and our youth- 
ful reason ; each so independent, so turbulent ! 
And their coming is so strange! Watch any 
boy as he approaches adolescence, and lo, a new 
power, a new faculty emerges. Suddenly it is 
there! The lad whose mind it had been so 
easy to guide, whose beliefs you could direct, 

22 



IN THE DAYS OF OUR YOUTH 23 

suddenly stands forth in mental independence. 
It is as if another boy were there. His appear- 
ance changes, his voice changes, his manner 
changes. More mysterious than all, his mind 
changes. Almost before you are aware of it, 
there is the presence and the assertion of this 
new faculty : the natural reason, confident, de- 
fiant. The lad throws up his head with that air 
of independence which parents get to know so 
well, and with which we all of us have startled 
our elders, — he gives a toss of his head, and says 
with an air of defiance: "I no longer believe 
that. It is foolish." He says this about serious 
things. He expresses his own views. And he 
does it with such assurance ! You cannot shake 
him. He acts as if he knew more than all his 
teachers. His parents begin to worry. They 
begin to think: "What has happened to this 
dear boy of ours? What is this new critical, 
contradictory spirit that sets everything on edge ? 
What mistake have we made ? What is the end 
to he?" 

The lad keeps on with his schooling. The 
more he learns, the more self-confident he be- 
comes. He is so quick to challenge any state- 
ment! He is so ready to argue! and he can 
argue so interminably! If some high theme is 
being considered, you dread so to see a certain 
superior smile come into that fine face of his, for 
you know that he is going to say some cutting 
thing about it. No matter, even, if it be some 



24 RELIGION AND LIFE 

belief to which you fondly cling, and he knows 
that the contradiction of it or the ridicule will 
hurt you. It seems as if he must raise his hand 
against it. He is so sure of himself! so sure of 
himself that some will be sure to say: "Isn't he 
opinionated?'' while others in their impatience 
will declare: "He is as stubborn as a mule!" 
As a mule. If the Bible had not given us this 
representation, it seems as if we ourselves must 
have found it; for the word translated "wild 
ass," by which the lad Ishmael was characterized, 
is nothing less than the mule of the wilder- 
ness. 

Is the figure too strong? The characteristics 
of which we have been speaking are indeed 
more marked in some than in others. The par- 
ent, the teacher, — these are the ones who feel 
they have a right to be aggrieved when this tur- 
bulent faculty of the natural reason lifts up its 
hand against them; and with hot indignation 
sometimes their hand is raised in resistance. And 
the lad himself? Is it all smooth and bright 
with him? Why, then, these moods of sadness 
and even of moroseness, in which we sometimes 
find him? Are there not moments when, in the 
silence of his own heart, he feels that he is mis- 
understood, harshly judged, discredited? Is there 
anything more sensitive than youth? Does it 
never have its hours of loneliness; times when it 
becomes depressed with an almost nameless mel- 
ancholy? The moods are so changeable! For 



IN THE DAYS OF OUR YOUTH 25 

"A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I have long cherished a passage from a ser- 
mon by Frederick Robertson, the great Brighton 
preacher, in which he speaks with discernment 
and wise sympathy of what we may properly call 
the spiritual trials of youth. He is describing 
some of the mental changes in life thus : 

"First there is the quiet, unpretending, uncon- 
scious obedience and innocence of home. Then 
comes the crisis of enquiry: new strange 
thoughts, entrance upon a new world, with often 
a hopeless seeking of truth from those who can 
teach it; hearing many teachers and questioning 
all; and then bewilderment, sometimes morose- 
ness and a turning from former things."* 

We are not to take this in any dismal way. 
This natural reason which emerges in youth is a 
necessary faculty, and notwithstanding its first 
unruly manifestations the Lord intends it to be- 
come a thoroughly noble faculty. It is capable 
of developing a spiritual side and mediating be- 
tween our lower and our higher minds. The dis- 
quieting* features which attend its first exercise 
are likely to pass away. We are not to think 
that something must be wrong with the youth, 
who now, quite suddenly, begins to show himself 
in a new character that causes anxiety. It is not 
his fault that this has come upon him. It is a 

* Sermon on The Early Development of Jesus. 



26 RELIGION AND LIFE 

part of his growth. One is not to be indifferent 
to it, assuming a laissez faire attitude towards it, 
and merely say: "Oh, he will come out 
all right in the end." Neither is it wise to 
assume a critical attitude, to try to suppress it 
and make it feel condemned. The coming of 
the reason means passing from a state of non- 
freedom to one of freedom. This is essential 
to every man's life; therefore it is of God. It is 
not to be put down. It is not to be met with 
severity or contempt. Of all the human helps 
that can be given, I suppose the greatest is a wise 
sympathy. Not condescension, but the kind of 
sympathy that carries with it the impression of 
interest, considerateness, understanding. And 
to this we shall need to add a patience and a 
trust in God who understands infinitely where 
we see but dimly, and who knows the vicissitudes 
not less than the sacred possibilities of the days 
of our youth. 



5.— THE MIGHTY MAN OF MISCHIEF. 

"Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, mighty man?" 
— Psalm lii:i. 

With a few sharp strokes the Psalmist sets 
before us this figure of the mighty man of mis- 
chief. He is not a historical figure, but a type; 
and the abrupt way in which he is introduced 
shows with what indignation he is regarded. The 
opening words of the little Psalm are burning 
hot. It is as if it had watched the mischief done 
by this great spoiler ; had brooded upon the reck- 
lessness of his injuries, until forbearance was 
possible no longer. Then it breaks out without 
a preliminary word in this passionate remon- 
strance: "Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, 
O mighty man?" 

Here is the great boaster, going about in his 
self-assurance, speaking recklessly; an agitator, 
doing untold harm; for his words are keen (like 
a razor, says the Psalm), and they are destruc- 
tive ("devouring words," they are called), swal- 
lowing their prey. One might think from all 
this that the Scriptures were drawing for us the 
outlines of some political demagogue, who, se- 
cure in wealth or some party advantage, pushed 

27 



28 RELIGION AND LIFE 

his vulgar, self-seeking way along with empty 
boasts, false promises, and abusive words for all 
who did not favor him. 

This, however, would be a forced as well as a 
limited interpretation. This mighty man of mis- 
chief stands for something of very much wider 
as well as higher application. He is the spirit of 
intellectual pride; that spirit of self-sufficiency 
which gets hold of a man, and by its assurance, 
its assertiveness, its superiority to counsel, causes 
one to exclaim: "What conceit! How arro- 
gant !" The mighty man of mischief! with his 
lordly ways ; with wit so keen ; loving to do vio- 
lence to cherished beliefs, to "show them up" if 
they have been founded on error ! 

This is not a trait that applies simply to the 
so-called intellectual classes. Pride of intelli- 
gence is something that may affect us all. For 
as a matter of common experience, consider how 
we do pride ourselves on our opinions, our judg- 
ments. Who can bear to be called "stupid?" 
How we suffer with mortification if we are dis- 
covered to be ignorant, or to have expressed 
views about some subject which were absurdly 
erroneous ? How all but impossible it is for some 
minds to say simply, and without any sense of 
personal humiliation: "I am mistaken. My 
facts were wrong or insufficient. I have not un- 
derstood the matter rightly." How, instead of 
that, one will oftentimes argue, and find excuses, 
feeling perhaps that he must give up his position, 



THE MIGHTY MAN OF MISCHIEF 29 

but backing off the field so slowly that the re- 
treat is hardly noticeable; and all through fear 
that one's intelligence may suffer in another's 
estimation. Many a man would rather be con- 
sidered clever than good. Men sometimes affect 
to be worse than they really are, and take a cer- 
tain pleasure in it; but when did we ever know 
any one who wished to be considered dull? 

I would only be wasting time if I were to try 
to point out that the power of intelligence may be 
abused. We all know that. Therefore I con- 
tent myself with saying that when it is abused, it 
becomes, as the Psalmist declares, a mighty man 
of mischief. We may not think it is a very se- 
rious fault, because it does not necessarily show 
itself in immoral acts, and because, also, it may 
fairly scintillate with cleverness. But in reality 
pride of intelligence is one of the greatest mis- 
chief-makers in our spiritual life. 

The mighty man of mischief laughs at this. 
With a proud toss of his head he says : 'That 
is narrow!" He would have you believe that 
the bright men of the world have broken from 
all religious connections; — an utterly vain and 
empty claim. The mighty man of mischief goes 
about with this sort of dare : "If you have men- 
tal independence enough, if you have the courage 
and the brains to do your own reasoning, — well, 
you will not believe as your parents do, or as 
you once did when you were a child or a youth. 
That is the faith of tradition," laughs the great 



30 RELIGION AND LIFE 

mischief-maker. "Trust your own intelligence. 
Get the latest point of view. Make up your own 
religion. Fashion your own God." 

There are thousands who are not openly and 
actively Christians because they have been cap- 
tivated by this spirit. There is something se- 
ductive in the idea of being intellectually inde- 
pendent, especially in matters of religious faith. 
A man thinks for himself. He dares to chal- 
lenge every cherished custom or belief. He is 
not afraid to put a question mark against the 
Bible, even though the divinest intelligence ever 
manifested to the world declared it to be the 
purpose of His life not to destroy it but to fulfil. 
He will not be deterred from refusing his open 
and undivided allegiance to One whose perfect 
life of wisdom and love stands transcendently 
above all men, and whose power of regeneration 
is attested by such a multitude of holy witnesses 
as to make our little questionings or attempted 
criticisms seem pitiful enough. And he does it, 
not because he knows more than others, but be- 
cause he is under the spell of this pride of intelli- 
gence. 

This spirit of intellectual assertiveness is so far 
away from the revelation made by our Lord! 
One of the greatest surprises of the Gospels is 
this: To the eyes of omniscient wisdom, that 
which seemed more discouraging than ignorance, 
or error, or cowardice, or open evil was the sin 
of self-sufficiency, the pride of mind that did 



THE MIGHTY MAN OF MISCHIEF 31 

not even know that it was infected with "the 
disease of self-importance." "How hardly shall 
they that trust in riches enter into the kingdom 
of God!" He was heard to exclaim; and we may 
believe that He had fully in mind this pride of 
supposed intellectual greatness. "I thank thee, 
Father," He was heard to pray, "that thou hast 
hid these things from the wise and prudent, and 
hast revealed them unto babes." To be unteach- 
able ; to be spiritually unsusceptible, impenetrable, 
self-satisfied — that was what called forth excla- 
mations nearest to despair from those divine 
lips. Our common judgments seem all reversed. 
As another has said: "He regards with ex- 
traordinary leniency some of the faults which 
the world most unqualifiedly condemns, and on 
the other hand He judges with surprising se- 
verity much which the world lightly forgives 
or mistakes for excellence. He is infinitely 
patient with the precipitate Peter; He cannot 
bring Himself to despair of the treacherous 
Judas; He is a friend of those whom the world 
calls sinners; He accepts those whom the world 
calls lost." But the mind that has no sense of 
need; the mind which in pride and self -sufficiency 
is closed to spiritual truth: — that seemed ever 
to awaken in the mind of our Lord the profound- 
est concern. And He put in contrast with this 
spirit something so wonderful : the teachableness 
and eagerness of a little child. 

Let us remember that when He praises child- 



32 RELIGION AND LIFE 

hood He is not confounding childlikeness with 
childishness; for when He draws to His side a 
little boy and tells His hearers that if they would 
enter into the kingdom they must become as that 
child, He is telling them that the prime requisite 
of spiritual success is a teachable spirit. 

Wonderful figure! So unlike the boaster of 
the Psalm ! And so utterly true ! Let me quote 
in closing these notable words of Huxley in a 
letter to Charles Kingsley: "Science seems to 
me to teach in the highest and strongest man- 
ner the great truth which is embodied in the 
Christian conception of entire surrender to the 
will of God. Sit down before the fact as a little 
child, be prepared to give up every preconceived 
notion of your own, follow humbly wherever and 
to whatever end it leads, or you shall learn noth- 
ing — I have only begun to learn content and 
peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks 
to do this." 

At all risks let us do the same. Place the Sa- 
viour of the world with His arm around a little 
child before our mind's eye; consider what it 
means; accept once for all the lesson of teach- 
ableness which it proclaims; then act upon it; 
and He who has taught us this strange way to 
blessedness will secure to us the rest. 



6.— A MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART. 

"The Lord hath sought him a man after His own heart." 
— I Samuel xiii 114. 

A man after God's own heart! That is the 
generous way in which God is represented as 
looking upon David. It is such a surprising esti- 
mate! It is so generous! A man after God's 
own heart. That seems to mean the kind of a 
man in which infinite Love and Wisdom take 
peculiar satisfaction; whose fortunes the spirit 
of God follows with approval and expectancy; 
the type of man to whom God would speak most 
reassuringly. 

It is safe to say that if we were to attempt to 
draw the outline of the man after God's own 
heart we would feel that we must draw the pic- 
ture of an ideal man : a man of faith, a man of 
stainless virtue, a man unfailingly true to God, 
never wavering, never straying from the way of 
righteousness and holiness, never wronging his 
fellow men ; a blameless man, a consecrated man, 
a perfect man. A man after God's own heart! 
"Ah, yes," we would say, "that means a man 
ideally good and true ; the man whose foot never 
slips, no matter how steep or how treacherous 

33 



34 RELIGION AND LIFE 

may be the way ; the man who never doubts ; the 
man who never feels himself sinking in deep 
mire; who readily shuns or quickly breaks the 
snare of temptation which evil lays for him; the 
man who is proof against discouragement; who 
is never scorched by any blast of passion; who 
never flames into anger when crossed and 
thwarted or wronged; who is never embittered; 
who always greets pain or misfortune with a 
smile; who goes rejoicingly on in the sunshine 
of God's presence." 

Do we not feel how futile it is to even try to 
draw the figure of an ideal man? It is too far 
removed from our human experience. After do- 
ing our best according to our highest imaginings, 
any one might justly say : "This is but a crea- 
tion of the mind: it is not a veritable being of 
flesh and blood ; it is not one of our race." 

And then to think that God should be repre- 
sented as saying of David, that he was a man 
after His own heart ! There is much in David's 
life that is beautiful and stirring and of a high 
order; but just as surely there are dark and evil 
traits. And yet the Bible represents God as 
looking upon him as a man after His own heart. 
How are we to think of this? 

It will help us greatly if we have this prin- 
ciple in mind : the characters of the Bible are to 
be regarded as types, not as examples. There are 
very few of them that are wholly exemplary: 
there are none of them that are not typical of 



A MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART 35 

some quality or principle, which has its part to 
play in the spiritual life. David is a type. He 
is a type of the spiritual life. And by the spir- 
itual life I mean the life that is lived in the heart- 
felt recognition of God. That does not imply 
necessarily a blameless or saintly life. Many a 
man lives a splendidly moral, useful life of whom 
it roust be said in the words of the Psalm : "God 
is not in all his thoughts;" and many a man 
whose life is stained and scarred, might truthfully 
claim the right to say, as David said, "Mine eyes 
are ever towards the Lord." I do not attempt 
to judge between the two types ; but I would urge 
that the man who sincerely tries to live the spir- 
itual life here and now is "a man after God's 
own heart." Because he fails at times, he is not 
necessarily a hypocrite. Here is where God's 
words spoken over David are so wonderfully 
generous. It is not a question of sinlessness. It 
is a question of motive, of desire, of spiritual 
effort. 

The world sneers or openly laughs when the 
man who is trying to live the life of the spirit 
makes a slip or falls. It is quick to join with the 
mockers of all ages, who cry with a kind of tri- 
umph : "Aha, aha, our eyes have seen it l" They 
are not to be blamed. They simply do not un- 
derstand the kind of life that is being attempted. 
They think of it, perhaps, as a life, which, if 
true, ought to be able to soar away as on wings 
of power. They little know that such an one, 



36 RELIGION AND LIFE 

contending against the temptations that harry 
and plague him in his earthly nature, and trying 
to live up to an ideal that his soul honors, might 
often be heard to say under his breath : "My 
soul followeth hard after Thee." Because a man 
says "I believe in God, even in God who revealed 
Himself for our salvation in Jesus Christ my 
Saviour;" because he says in the depths of his 
heart: "I will hear what God the Lord will 
speak;" because, looking upon the Word made 
flesh with eyes of faith, something prompts him 
to say; "I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou 
goest," it is not necessarily true that he will find 
this life of the spirit a simple life to live. Let 
us not be afraid of the truth. Such a life is 
subject to all kinds of opposition from without 
and from within. It is open to discourage- 
ments through many mortifying failures. But 
here is the point: it is the true life to strive for. 
It is the only kind of life that is worthy of us 
if we are in fact, as well as in name, the chil- 
dren of God. The greatest shame lies not in the 
occasional failure, but in that condition of spir- 
itual insensibility which prevents a man from 
even trying to live the life of which he is capable 
as a spiritual being. To scoff at religion, or to 
merely play at it, is never praiseworthy. The 
Lord tries in every way to set before us a deeper 
truth. He takes David. He sets him before us, 
not as an example, but as a type — a type of the 
man who sincerely tries to live his life in the 



A MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART 37 

heartfelt recognition of Him — and as expressive 
of the way in which His heart goes out to such 
a man, He says of David, that he was "a man 
after His own heart." 

When we remember that the Lord was actually 
called "the son of David," it makes the typical 
character of David's life more wonderful and 
significant than ever. The struggles of His di- 
vinely-human life are being suggested. Not ac- 
tual sins, but the temptations which assailed Him 
are being foreshadowed. And that brings us 
into a kind of spiritual fellowship with Him that 
is most reassuring. He knows. He is not un- 
mindful of the struggle which every one may be 
undergoing who is trying to live the life of the 
spirit. For nothing is more clear than that it 
was the inmost desire of His life to awaken in 
men a realization of their spiritual possibilities; 
to help them feel their sonship to God. He de- 
spised none, despaired of none. He found some- 
thing good in moral outcasts, and was often able 
to quicken and develop it. He estimated men 
not for what they were at the moment, but for 
what they were longing to be. He found none 
so helpless and hopeless as those who were sat- 
isfied to remain as they were. But His love and 
sympathy were without limit for all who were 
earnestly striving to live the life of the spirit. 

That love and sympathy are ours to-day if we 
are trying to live the true life : — love for the 
effort, for the faith, for the desire, for the sac- 



38 RELIGION AND LIFE 

rifice, for the service done in His name. And 
the sympathy is there for the mistakes, for the 
failures, for the lapses, for the disloyalties. God 
knows they are many. Are they hard to bear? 
Do they trouble us deeply? Do we find our- 
selves saying with a feeling of real sorrow in 
our hearts : "Against Thee, Thee only have I 
sinned and done this evil in Thy sight?" Can 
we go on and pray the other prayer in that same 
Psalm: "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be 
clean ; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. 
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew 
a right spirit within me"? 

The spiritual life! The Lord help us to live 
it ; for always and everywhere it is dear to Him, 
and every man who strives thus to live, is a man 
after His own heart. 



7.— TRUE GREATNESS * 

"And Elisha . . . cried: My father, my father, the 
chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" — II Kings, 
ii:i2. 

The figure of Elijah is most appealing. He 
was a man who, all his life, stood for the recog- 
nition and realization of an imperious idea : fidel- 
ity to the living God who had formed and 
molded His people Israel. The very name which 
he bore expressed this truth : Eli, a contraction 
of Elohim, "God," with the possessive "my," and 
Jah, an abbreviation of "Jehovah." Jehovah is 
my God. Elijah stood for that literal, funda- 
mental truth of the Word. His formula: "As 
Jehovah liveth before whom I stand," rang with 
power. Obscure of origin, coming, going, unher- 
alded, unattended, he yet was one of God's great 
ones upon earth ; and when the time came for his 
release, as if the Bible would have us know how 
great he was, and how glorious the truth for 
which he stood, behold, a chariot of fire, and 
horses of fire, which bore the prophet heaven- 
ward. And the youth Elisha, seeing as in a 

* From a sermon preached on the occasion of the one 
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. 

39 



4 o RELIGION AND LIFE 

dream the hero of his life lifted triumphantly 
from the earth, cried aloud in awe and love: 
"My father, my father; the chariot of Israel, 
and the horsemen thereof !" Horse and chariot 
he had seen, this brave defender! rushing here, 
rushing there ; standing up for the Lord of 
Hosts ; hunted and pursued, but never conquered ! 
Meet it was that the faith for which he stood 
should have its apotheosis in this vision of a 
heroic soul going forth from this world's con- 
tests with every evidence of honor. 

Consider how expressive is this representative 
scene : a chariot, horses, fire. 

The chariot was the conviction (a firm doc- 
trinal belief) in which Elijah had bravely stood, 
and from which he stoutly fought. Do not the 
leaders of a party draw up what they call a 
"platform" of principles? Is it not on this that 
a candidate declares it to be his intention to 
stand? Only the Bible figure is far more ex- 
pressive. Here is a vehicle in which the mind 
may move about amid contending opinions and 
hold its own; a chariot from which one may 
fight for what is believed to be true and of God. 

But conviction must have its intelligence, as 
a chariot must have its horses; otherwise it is 
useless. If this symbolism should seem a little 
obscure, remember that it was familiar to the 
ancients, and found its way into classic litera- 
ture; as in the legend of the winged horse "Pe- 
gasus," at the stroke of whose hoof the foun- 



TRUE GREATNESS 41 

tain of the muses gushed forth; or again, of the 
wooden horse by which Troy was taken — a way 
of saying that the Greeks prevailed by their 
intelligence. 

The fire, as all can see, is the love element of 
the vision — the burning zeal; the ardor, which, 
like a flame, burns within the conviction and the 
intelligence, until chariot and horses seem as if 
they were of fire. 

These are the elements of a grand life: Con- 
viction — and when the Bible speaks of conviction 
it means such conviction as Elijah had, and which 
he expressed in the phrase that kept ringing 
from his lips : "As Jehovah liveth before whom 
I stand !" — Intelligence — and that means far 
more than smartness, far more than book- 
learning; it means the ability to see that 
a thing is true, and that it is of God — and 
Love; that power of life given of God which 
burns within and warms one through and 
through with a great desire that the thing which 
is seen to be true and is believed in, mind and 
heart, may prevail. 

There are times when it is good reverently to 
enquire into the sources and springs of power 
in great men. May we not turn to-day with a 
feeling of especial interest to one whose name is 
upon all lips— "a name that flashes fire at the 
touch of sound ?" It is not out of a desire to 
attempt to eulogize that I speak of Abraham 
Lincoln to-day. Neither do I seek to draw les- 



42 RELIGION AND LIFE 

sons from his life. But I think it is good, I think 
it is impressive to recognize the elements of his 
greatness. Those elements seem to me to be 
wonderfully expressed by the symbols of which 
I have been speaking: Conviction of the deepest 
kind; Intelligence of the noblest; Love that 
burned itself into everything that that great spirit 
said or did. This man of destiny, this man of 
God, seems to have had combined in him in al- 
most perfect measure and proportion these ele- 
ments of greatness. 

i. No one will doubt his power of conviction. 
And by conviction I mean the settled purpose of 
his mind that a great wrong was to be put away, 
a great principle was to be maintained if the 
Union was to fulfill the high destiny for which 
it was formed. One feels that as he drew nearer 
to the great position to which he was to be called, 
and as the complexities and dangers became 
greater and more alarming, how the convictions 
of the man became not only more sternly real, 
but more solemn. To the people of this city 
who had thought of him as an uncouth West- 
erner, he could say with an impressiveness that 
stirred them : "Neither let us be slandered from 
our duty by false accusations against us, nor 
frightened from it by menaces of destruction 
to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves. 
Let us have faith that right makes might, and 
in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty 
as we understand it." 



TRUE GREATNESS 43 

How simple are the words, and yet how 
mighty, when, as head of the nation, with war 
actually begun, he said in closing his message 
to Congress : "Having thus chosen our course, 
without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew 
our trust in God and go forward without fear 
and with manly hearts." 

Deeper and deeper, it would seem, did his con- 
victions come to rest, not on any worldly sa- 
gacity, not in any strength of man, but in the 
eternal purposes of God. The Scriptures alone 
will afford a model for these famous words in 
his second inaugural : 

"The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the 
world because of offences ! for it must needs be that 
offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence 
cometh ! If we shall suppose that American slavery is one 
of those offences, which, in the Providence of God must 
needs come, but which having continued through His ap- 
pointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives 
to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due 
to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern 
therein any departure from the Divine attribute which 
the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? 
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty 
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills 
that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bonds- 
man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall 
be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash 
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was 
said, three thousand years ago, so still it must be said : The 
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether/ " 

What conviction ! "My father, my father, the 
chariot of Israel I" 



44 RELIGION AND LIFE 

2. And the intelligence ? How nobly it 
matched his settled purpose of mind! not by hu- 
man sagacity alone, not in the statesman's wis- 
dom, but in that perception of the thinking, 
troubled soul, that dependence must be had, and 
light and strength given through a power higher 
than his own. Beautifully has it been said of 
him: "Always the belief in God was to him a 
challenge to singleness of purpose : to the All 
Pure he lifted clean hands and a pure heart. ,, 
How impressively true this was on the memor- 
able day when the great leader went forth from 
his home to fulfill the trust which had been placed 
upon him ! To his associates and fellow citizens 
gathered about him, he said : 

"No one not in my situation can appreciate my feeling 
of sadness at this parting. ... I now leave, not know- 
ing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before 
me greater than that which rested on Washington. With- 
out the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended 
him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. 
Trusting in Him who can go with me and remain with you, 
and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that 
all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I 
hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an 
affectionate farewell." 

"My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, 
and the horsemen thereof!" 

3. And the fire? Chariot and horses of fire 
they were; for who does not know the love of 
the man? This was indeed the very life-stuff 
of his nature, the element that penetrated the 



TRUE GREATNESS 45 

sternest duties he had to perform, the hardest 
blows he had to strike, the deepest wrongs 4ie 
had to bear. 

"With malice toward none: with charity for 
all" — who does not recognize the words ? — house- 
hold words they are, or should be. And yet 
they immediately follow that portion of his in- 
augural, which I have already quoted, where, 
with the sternness of a prophet, he quotes and 
stands by that "Woe unto the world because of 
offences !" 

"With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; with 
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let 
us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the 
nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the 
battle, and for his widow and his orphan ; to do all which 
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among 
ourselves, and with all nations." 

Solemn, gracious words! And more than 
words. "To think/' exclaims a writer, "that 
during the four years of the hideous conflict, 
Abraham Lincoln, though his spirit was strained 
almost beyond human endurance by the harass- 
ments of his position; though misunderstood and 
foully calumniated by public antagonists, and 
thwarted and plotted against by some of his own 
apparent supporters, uttered not one word of 
violence or rancor — not a phrase, which, after 
the cessation of hostilities, might return to em- 
bitter the defeated combatants, or be resented 
by their descendants!" 



46 RELIGION AND LIFE 

Wonderful, indeed ! And then to think of the 
kindly words that were spoken; the personal in- 
terest in all manner of people; the spirit that 
could give its unfeigned sympathy to so many! 
Did the woman who lost five sons in battle ever 
forget that Abraham Lincoln, reading the files 
of the war department, and seeing the record of 
her loss, sat down and wrote : 

"I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of 
mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief 
of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from 
tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the 
thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our 
Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereave- 
ment, and leave you only the cherished memory of the 
loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to 
have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." 

In chariot and with horses of fire! The leader 
of a people! His origin so lowly! His hard- 
ships so many! His humanity so broad! His 
humor so quaint! "The keys of (political) life 
and death held out to a sad-eyed, laughter-loving, 
story-telling, shrewd, unlettered, great-hearted 
frontiersman !" But a man of such deep convic- 
tions, such noble intelligence, such warmth of 
love and sympathy ! A man of God ! 

'The color of the ground was in him, the red earth : 
The smack and tang of elemental things : 
The rectitude and patience of the cliff; 
The good-will of the rain that falls for all; 
The friendly welcome of the wayside well; 
The courage of the bird that dares the sea; 



TRUE GREATNESS 47 

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn; 
The mercy of the snow that hides all scars : 
The secrecy of streams that make their way 
Beneath the mountain to the cloven rock; 
The underlying justice of the light 
That gives as freely to the shrinking flower 
As to the great oak flaring to the wind — 
To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn 
That shoulders out the sky. 

"Sprung from the West, 
The Great West nursed him on her rugged knees. 
The strength of virgin forests braced his mind: 
The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul. 
Up from log cabin to the Capitol. 
One fire was on his spirit, one resolve — 
To send the keen axe to the root of wrong, 
Clearing a free way for the feet of God. 
And evermore he turned to do his deed 
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king: 
He built the rail-pile as he built the State 
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow, 
The conscience of him testing every stroke, 
To make his deed the measure of a man."* 

Thus to "the whirlwind hour" he came. And 
then? "My father, my father, the chariot of 
Israel, and the horsemen thereof !" 

* Edwin Markham. 



8.— THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 
I. How He Came. 

"He was m the world, and the world was made by Him, 
and the world knew Him not." — John i:io. 

There never was a more beautiful, there never 
was a more wonderful, there never was a more 
thrilling story than this story of the forth-going 
of the mind of God to the children of men as 
told in these opening verses of the Fourth Gos- 
pel. No deed of chivalry, no act of self-sacri- 
fice, no devotion to a great cause ever approached 
in intensity or in grandeur this one supreme in- 
stance of Perfect Life giving of Itself for the 
life of the world, as celebrated in this "Golden 
Proem/ ' which serves as a kind of celestial 
chorus or prelude to the Gospel according to 
John. The strangest adventure ever told! the 
divinest quest ever attempted! the most tragic 
response ever made to all that perfect love could 
do! And it is all told in words so simple and 
so few! 

Here in one continuous line of light is the 
story of God's life in its forth-reaching to men; 
one great purpose of love throbbing in every 

4 8 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 49 

sentence. For God in the act of revealing Him- 
self, God uttering Himself, making Himself 
known — this is the idea which the Greek sought 
to express in the term Logos, for which our 
nearest equivalent is the term Word. The Word 
is the forth-going of the mind of God; to make 
itself known; to declare itself. That alone is such 
a mighty conception ! "In the beginning was the 
Word." From the very first— so we may read 
this divine biography — God has had this infinite 
desire, as an essential part of His being, to go 
forth to something outside of Himself, to which 
He might prove Himself a power of comfort and 
of blessing. Hence the creation : "All things 
were made by Him." Hence, too, a sustaining 
and illuminating power of life : "The life was the 
light of men." Even in man's sin and blindness 
the eternal Logos tries to present Itself to man's 
consciousness : "The Light shineth in the dark- 
ness." Instead of being welcomed, this self-re- 
vealment of God, whether by visions, or by the 
ministry of angels, or by sacred Scriptures, is 
less and less prized; it becomes obscured; it be- 
comes ignored : "He was in the world, and the 
world knezu Him not." Man seems to be slip- 
ping beyond the reach of the divine influences. 
Nothing, apparently, can lay hold of him with 
saving power, and awaken in him the conscious- 
ness that he is the child of God. Has not the 
Divine Spirit, which has ministered to him from 
the days of his celestial innocence, gone as far 



50 RELIGION AND LIFE 

as it can go? Is not man slipping through the 
divine hands? And then this strangely-loving 
history of the mind of God goes on to say: 
"And the Word was made flesh (literally, be- 
came flesh) and dwelt among us; and we beheld 
His glory — glory as of the only begotten of the 
Father — full of grace and truth." 

The story of the Logos completes itself in 
the story of the manger. It does not argue for 
it, as we, seeking to establish a doctrine, are 
so apt to argue for it. It seems to be content 
to leave with us the story of infinite endeavor; 
as if the very conception of a fact so wonderful 
and gracious, and the telling of it, and, above 
all, the verification of it in the life of Jesus 
Christ our Lord, must have in it a power of 
appeal that would touch and win our souls. And 
it is written : "To as many as received Him, to 
them gave He the power to become children of 
God, even to them that believe on His name/' 

To whom does this refer? To whom only 
could it refer? Hear the words of the loved 
disciple, as, in his old age, he writes his epistle 
to a little group of believers : 

"That which was from the beginning, that 
which we have heard, that which we have seen 
with our eyes, and our hands have handled con- 
cerning the Word of life (and the life was mani- 
fested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and 
declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which 
was with the Father and was manifested unto 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 51 

us) — that which we have seen and heard declare 
we unto you." 

It seems to sweep his soul with a great wave of 
love! He can see that face again; can hear 
that voice. The days by the sea; the sight of 
Him on a mountain, teaching; the picture of 
Him blessing children, healing the sick, feeding a 
multitude, stilling the storm, liberating some poor 
demoniac! The remembrance of the awful trag- 
edy of His rejection; the sight of Him as He 
hung upon the cross; those dreadful jeers! And 
then the reappearance in the certainty of His 
resurrection; the vision of Him, as, dwelling in 
exile, his spiritual eyes being opened, he beheld 
"One like unto the Son of Man" with every at- 
tribute of Divine power and glory; and multi- 
tudes upon multitudes filling the heavens with 
the great triumphant cry : "Worthy is the Lamb 
that was slain to receive power, and riches, and 
wisdom, and might, and honor, and glory, and 
blessing !" 

I respond with all my mind to this exclama- 
tion of Browning : 

"I never realized God's birth before — 
How He grew likest God in being born." 

Let us make sure that our souls grasp and 
honor this essential fact : that the Lord Christ 
is God seeking us. It is Divine Love and Divine 
Wisdom clothed w r ith our nature, veiling their 
infinite splendors, accommodating themselves to 



52 RELIGION AND LIFE 

our human conditions, meeting us, greeting us, 
appealing to us face to face, entering into the 
duties and relationships of what to all appear- 
ances was an obscure, toilsome, circumscribed 
human life, so that God — if one may venture to 
express it so — would thus know what it is to 
labor ; He would know what it is to be obscure ; 
He would know what it is to suffer privation; 
He would know what it is to be misunderstood, 
slighted and passed by; He would know what 
a man's chance, a man's discouragements, a man's 
temptations may be. 

"And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds, 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
More strong than all poetic thought." 

Oh, the naturalness, the gentleness, and yet 
the exceeding great dignity of it! How quietly 
He came ! A few dazed shepherds keeping watch 
over their flocks by night ; a song out of heaven ; 
a young mother pondering in her heart words 
and promises too deep for her to understand as 
she wrapt her first-born son in swaddling clothes 
and laid Him in a manger ! There was no room 
for them in the inn. "He was in the world — 
and the world knew Him not !" 



9.— THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 
II. The Entrance Upon His Ministry. 

"This is He of whom I spake: after me cometh a man 
who is before me." — John i :30. 

The incident at the river Jordan where our 
Lord was baptized, was not only touching but 
extraordinary. He who was to prove Himself 
to be the Redeemer of the world; who would as- 
sume Divine authority such as no man ever has 
or could assume — He, when He went forth to 
enter upon His ministry, turned His steps to 
where His faithful forerunner was baptizing, as 
if to say : "My place is here; here in the midst of 
men who are confessing their sins!" There are 
few moments in all our Lord's life which seem 
more gracious and expressive than when He 
stepped down into the little river, and quieted 
the remonstrance of the Baptizer with those 
w r ords which sound like a pledge of His divine 
forbearance, and of His desire to leave nothing 
undone which could bring Him close to men: 
"Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us 
to fulfill all righteousness. " Then, no one know- 
ing what it meant, as a sign that His nature 

53 



54 RELIGION AND LIFE 

should be stainless, He, our Saviour, disappeared 
for a moment under the waters of the Jordan. 

What does this mean? I try to put it in the 
simplest words, words with no thought of dogma 
in them: Christ the Lord, our Redeemer, has 
ranged Himself with our human nature. He 
has said by a sign — the sign with which we bap- 
tize our children in token that they may be re- 
generated — "I shall not try to escape the way 
of human life. I shall meet temptation, as you 
must try to meet it. I shall be perfect, as you 
ought to try to be perfect." May we not here 
recall a cry of thanksgiving which broke from 
His lips three years afterward in which He ex- 
pressed joy that a certain divine change had 
been wrought in the human nature He had as- 
sumed: "Now is the Son of Man glorified!" 

Our Lord's "glorification!" That involves 
such heights and depths! The words by which 
we try to explain it never seem adequate. The 
most perfect assertion of its purpose is to be 
found in these words which He was heard to 
utter in prayer : "For their sakes, I sanctify 
Myself; that they also might be sanctified." He 
was expressing the wish of His soul that in 
His own divinely human person He should be 
so perfect in holiness as to be the means of 
grace, the source of a regenerating power to all 
men. It is not so much what He is to say and 
teach — wonderful as that shall be — nor even the 
deeds of mercy He shall perform — gracious as 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 55 

they shall prove to be — it is what He Himself 
shall be. He will not simply point out the true 
way to live, or teach the truth, or be an inspira- 
tion in life; He will be "the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life." He will do more than throw 
light upon the world's problems : He will be 
"the Light of the world." He will not simply try 
to minister to man's spiritual hunger : He will 
be "the Bread of life." He will not simply bring 
life and immortality to light: He will be "the 
Resurrection and the Life." 

Wonderful instance of Perfect Life standing 
there among men; offering Himself without a 
trace of vainglory; setting Himself with gentle 
but inflexible purpose to be the Saviour of men! 
Let that truth burn itself into the substances of 
our minds. Then think what it meant for Him, 
as He came forth into the world, to stand with 
others, and, like them, receive this sign of puri- 
fication. To each man there, baptism would 
mean, "Create in me a clean heart, O God ;" and 
happy they who would attain to this with even 
moderate success. To Him it meant : "For their 
sakes I sanctify Myself that they also might be 
sanctified;" and by the glorification of His 
Humanity to be the source of truth, and love, 
and grace, and life to all the world. 

And yet what an impossible undertaking that 
would seem to be to any mortal man! Easier 
to draw a sword and lead men into battle, and, 
if need be, lay down one's life for some good 



56 RELIGION AND LIFE 

cause. Easier to enter the lists and fight against 
oppression, or vice; bearing ridicule, suffering 
defeat, but fighting for the right. Easier by 
means of the pen, or the voice, or by the use of 
property, or by good works to improve the lot 
of some portion of our race. Many devoted 
men have served their generation in these ways. 
But to be to the world what the Lord proved 
Himself to be : the source of divine light, 
strength, comfort, life itself — that is something 
which, if it were not for the fact of Christian 
experience, we would all claim to be impossible. 
Reading between the lines of the Gospel ac- 
count of our Lord's ministry, can we not see 
how severely this supreme purpose of His life 
must have been tried? The clamors of the peo- 
ple for "signs and wonders ;" their selfish desire 
to make Him a king of earthly rank and power; 
the dullness of His followers; their slowness of 
heart; their seeming inability to understand and 
take it into their souls that He was there as 
the living personal expression of the Infinite Love 
and Wisdom, which it had long been promised 
would some day be revealed in the person of 
the Redeemer — must not all these things have 
been a trial to Him? When men rose to Him 
only because He healed the sick, or fed their 
hungry mouths, or were fired by false ambitions 
because He accepted the office of Messiah ; when 
they could not understand, and even mocked 
the idea of Divinity revealing itself "in the like- 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 57 

ness of man/' calling it "blasphemy," reviling 
Him because of it, turning with fury against the 
very thing which all His life with infinite patience 
and forbearance He had tried to make real to 
them, putting Him finally to death amid jeers 
because of it — does it not seem as if again and 
again His soul must have been stung and tor- 
tured with the seeming hopelessness of saving 
the world by this lowly, self-sacrificing way 
which Infinite Love had chosen? 

And out of all this there comes a lesson, so 
clear, so needed by us all : consecration to our 
ideal of what true life should be (that is the 
baptism) ; and then faithfulness to that purpose. 
For this truth is not a truth to be simply talked 
about. Can we not go to our homes, our busi- 
ness, our fellow-men with this truth in mind and 
have it influence us in the way in which we 
should live, and do our work, and act toward 
each other? We live from this life which gives 
of itself for the good of all; which has accom- 
modated itself to our low estate, humbled itself, 
endured temptation, ridicule, death, that we 
might be freed from an evil bondage and know 
what true life is. Who are we that we should 
look doubtfully or carelessly upon this Life 
whose "Follow Me," though kindly spoken, has 
yet the imperiousness of Divine Wisdom itself? 
Who are we that we should let our little com- 
forts and schemes, our ambitions, our vanities, 
our prejudices, set aside this great Love which 



58 RELIGION AND LIFE 

came to men and has never ceased to care and 
live for them? John the Baptist stood on the 
river's bank, thrilled, awed by that stoop of 
Perfect Life in seeking baptism at his hands. 
He was heard to cry to the curious throng: 
"There standeth One among you, whom ye know 
not!" Must the great Love always be in the 
midst, and yet unknown? May you and I not 
do something to give it recognition; lift up our 
souls to it in sincerity and earnestness; and ask 
of it that we may live from its spirit, and prove 
that a man can do the work which is given him 
to do, meet difficulties, bear responsibilities, en- 
dure disappointments, face temptations, and do 
it in the name and in the spirit of Jesus Christ 
our Lord? 



io.— THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

III. The Judean Ministry. — "He Came 
Unto His Own/' 

"He came unto His own, and His own received Him 
not." — John i:ii. 

Our Lord's ministry covered approximately a 
period of three years. The Judean ministry, so 
called, was that portion of it which was openly 
devoted to the Jews. In point of time it occu- 
pied a little more than one-third of His entire 
ministry; and yet so slight was the response to 
it that Matthew, Mark and Luke do not even 
refer to it, but take up the story of His labors 
beginning with His preaching and work in Gali- 
lee. So little accomplished outwardly that the 
Fourth Gospel (written after the other three) is 
the only one to tell the seemingly meagre and 
disappointing story of it! 

Is there not something tragic about this ? Upon 
the Church, which for centuries had been accu- 
mulating and treasuring the prophecies of His 
coming, the only impression that He made was 
one of suspicion and scorn, developing rapidly 
into hatred and violent antagonism. "He came 
unto His own, and His own received Him not." 

59 



60 RELIGION AND LIFE 

"His own." That surely cannot mean that the 
Jews were God's favorites upon the earth in any- 
personal sense. Since His love and wisdom are 
infinite, we are bound to believe that He is no 
respecter of persons in the sense of favoring 
some more than others. But these people, "stiff- 
necked" though they were divinely declared to 
be, had qualities which made them peculiarly 
available for the divine purposes. Among these 
was the formation and preservation of a Scrip- 
ture which should set forth in a marvellous way, 
truths from the mind of God. One truth espe- 
cially was set forth with such vividness and such 
increasing definiteness and assurance, that it came 
to be regarded as the central truth of all : the 
coming of a Deliverer, who would be none other 
than the Lord Himself, and who would effect 
man's redemption from an unnatural slavery to 
evil, and establish a kingdom of righteousness 
upon the earth. 

We say — and with an abundance of Biblical 
facts in corroboration of the assertion — that the 
Lord was crucified for having, by word and by 
deed, assumed to be "the Christ/' "the Anointed," 
the promised "Son of God." One cannot in rea- 
son eliminate these assertions and all that goes 
with them, as the perfervid beliefs of over-en- 
thusiastic followers. Cut them away, and, as has 
been justly insisted, the Gospels bleed to death. 
In that case there is nothing left for it but to 
say that the Lord, in claiming to be the fulfil- 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 61 

ment of the great Redeemer-promise of the Old 
Testament, made a ghastly mistake, and that the 
Jews were quite right in stigmatizing it as "blas- 
phemy;" even if they were cruel and went too 
far in their mode of rejecting His claim. 

This is a question of doctrine : one side assert- 
ing "the Divinity of Christ/' the other denying 
it. But beneath this may there not be something 
involved that is more essential? We say — and, 
I think, correctly — that the Jewish Sanhedrin 
condemned our Lord to death because by word 
and deed He made Himself Divine. "Because 
that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God." 
That to them was blasphemy. Why could they 
not see the truth in it? We, when we try to 
put it into words, say : "It was because they could 
not, or would not see the Divinity of Christ.' ' 
Is not the deeper truth this : "It was because they 
would not, or could not, see the Humanity of 
God?" The Humanity of God. Men seem to 
think it is a reflection upon the infinite majesty 
that He should suffer Himself to be identified 
with mortal man. They start at the thought, as 
though it were a kind of affront upon God's 
stainless glory and His omnipotence, that He 
should in any real or personal way make Himself 
one with us. There is a certain something within 
some men which recoils from the idea that God 
could be anything else but infinitely removed 
from any actual participation in the thoughts and 
the feelings of our nature. There is a class of 



62 RELIGION AND LIFE 

thinkers who argue that the very fact of Infinity 
carries with it the conclusion that we, with our 
individual cares, struggles, achievements, can be 
no more to God than the insects are to us. And 
they seem to think that this Infinite Something 
which has created worlds without number, is 
hopelessly compromised by the mere thought that 
It should stoop to our infirmities, and share them 
as our Lord shared them. They stand up, as 
they think, for the divinity of God by insisting 
that He is infinitely above all these petty griefs 
or joys of ours that worry or exhilarate us in the 
flesh. And then, — unless I have read every line 
of the Gospel wrong — there is put squarely be- 
fore the world, not as a doctrine simply, but as a 
living fact, the truth that "the Word was made 
flesh," and that God proved Himself to be divine 
by taking our nature upon Him. He shows how 
infinite He is by taking this throbbing flesh of 
ours, this human equipment of brain and will, 
and identifying Himself with it. He startles, 
He confounds. He shocks all our highly-bred 
notions of what an infinite God should be, by 
saying, as He said in His assumed Humanity : 
"Behold, the Man!" 

Is this really a scandal, or a discreditable 
thing to believe? How your heart goes out to 
the man, who, really great in wisdom and in 
love, stainless in character, with reputation and 
honor all that a man could ask for — how, I say, 
your heart goes out to such a man, if, without 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 63 

affectation of any kind, or without betraying any 
sense of condescension, but just from a God- 
given desire to befriend human life in its need 
and its suffering, he gives of himself to his fel- 
lows ! Are there cynics to cry : "It is a need- 
less sacrifice of life ! The men to whom he goes, 
and upon whom he bestows his thoughts, his 
time, his strength, are not worth it! They will 
not appreciate it !" Yes, there are, there always 
have been, cynics like these. But that is it : they 
are cynics. The deed is too fine for them to 
understand. The love is too great for them to 
honor. 

The Bible, with its promises of Christ, and 
its revelation of the actual Christ, is here in our 
midst, braving all this cynicism and "aristocratic 
revulsion of feeling" against greatness submit- 
ting itself to weakness. It is here with its glow- 
ing prophecies in one Testament, and its artless 
narrative in the other, as if to ask : "Is man 
capable of greater love, and of greater self-sacri- 
fice, than the God who made him, and put it 
into his heart to feel that Love is greatest when 
it lays down its life for others?" 

The Lord Jesus came to "His own." They 
would have received Him quickly enough, they 
would have gone mad with joy, if He had come 
with outward evidences of infinite splendor and 
might. If He had just waved aside all opposi- 
tion; if He had blasted Llis persecutors with a 
word or a look; if He had lifted Himself free 



64 RELIGION AND LIFE 

and clear of all that tempts and pains our sin- 
ful lives, and had moved majestically along a 
way of supernal glory — would not men have ex- 
claimed: "What a Divine Being!" 

The Lord came unto His own in the way that 
He did, to teach the Church and the world that 
it is God-like to suffer for the sake of others; 
and to make clear to the Church this greater 
truth : The Lord is to be met, and felt, and hon- 
ored, zvhere human life is. That may be a les- 
son which we have yet to learn. The Church 
is dear to many of us; its institutions, its sacra- 
ments, its cherishing of the Word, its worship, 
and its promulgation of the Gospel, seem to us 
to be not only needful but most precious. But 
if we insist that the Lord is only to be seen, and 
is only to be treated with becoming honor, amid 
the doctrines and ceremonials of religion; if, 
wishing to be devoted to His Church, we give 
scant heed to, or look down upon the efforts 
which are made for the betterment of human life 
in other ways, then it ought to be borne in upon 
us that we are standing out against the very truth 
for which the Christ-life stands. The Church 
must not be supercilious. It must not think or 
say that it is only through its doctrines, its rites 
and sacraments, its clergy, that the Lord is car- 
rying on His divine ministry in the world. Pray 
that these things may indeed be clone — done with 
high hearts and eager, believing minds; done 
with hope, done with the spirit of grace — but 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 65 

pray also that the Church may be true enough to 
its own doctrine of the Son of Man to recognize 
Him in every sincere effort in the world to in- 
corporate something of the divine life of Love 
and Wisdom into the midst of human need, and 
sorrow, and oppression. Let us feel that the 
things of the Church are sacred, and that they 
are intended to be of use in ways more far 
reaching and more essential to the spiritual well- 
being of the world than the eyes of our intelli- 
gence can see; but let us also know — and know 
it as a part of this very doctrine of the coming 
of the Son of Man, which the Church ought to 
teach, — that, as has been said, "wherever man is 
being served in righteousness and love, and where 
cups of water are placed to children's lips ; ,J 
where all that Wisdom and Love can devise in 
ministering to those who are morally famished, 
or sick, or in bondage is being done, that the 
Christ-life is, as of old, clothing itself in these 
poor garments of our humanity, and that it is 
for us to see it, and to regard it, with grateful 
honor, and to share it, feeling that it is a spirit- 
ual realization of the coming of the Lord to 
the children of men. 



ii.— THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

IV. The Galilean Ministry. — His Acclaim 
by the Common People. 

"The common people heard Him gladly." — Mark xiii 137. 

There is something brightening and reassuring 
about these words. We get to dwelling upon 
the blindness and narrowness of the Church rul- 
ers, the scorn of the Pharisees, the supercilious- 
ness of the Sadducees. We see them scandalized 
at the Son of Man because, as they said, He 
made Himself "equal with God." And then, sud- 
denly, we come upon this statement in the Gospel 
according to Mark, and we exclaim: "At least 
there were souls simple and genuine enough, suf- 
ficiently free of ecclesiasticism and tradition to 
be able to accord the Lord a sincere and loving 
welcome/' 

It is good also to shut out sometimes this 
stressful present, and in thought live over the 
loving gospel story of the days in Galilee : the 
crowds who were drawn to Him by a power of 
attraction they did not understand ; who felt that 
through Him life was become a new thing; who 

66 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 67 

listened with tense minds to "the gracious words 
which proceeded out of His mouth" ; who must 
have held their breath as they saw Him open 
sightless eyes, or remove the weight of some 
infirmity, or liberate some poor soul from de- 
moniac control; who felt their faith and their 
affection rise higher and higher, and to whom 
simply to lay a hand on the hem of His garment 
seemed to assure a blessing. Men came to think 
of Him more and more as in some beautiful, 
wonderful way the Champion of their poor aim- 
less lives, the Light of their minds, the Nourisher 
of their souls, the gracious, the all-sufficient Com- 
rade, Shepherd, Saviour, to whom their awak- 
ened natures reached out with a sense of glad- 
ness that thrilled them through and through. 

May we not also think of Him as touched by 
the sight of this multitude of simple people rising 
up to Him, trusting Him, bringing to Him their 
sick, telling out their troubles, trying — oh, so 
hard ! — to understand what He told them of "the 
kingdom of heaven" that was near, and around, 
and within them all? 

What is the real truth that comes down to us 
out of this Galilean ministry? Is there any 
danger of drawing a false inference here ? Does 
it mean that Church people are less susceptible to 
the spirit of Christ than "common people?" And 
by "common people" are we to understand the 
workingman and the workingwoman ; the people 
who toil with their hands and do the rough work 



68 RELIGION AND LIFE 

of the world; the people of small means and 
meagre intellectual culture? 

That is the inference that is so often drawn. 
That is the point of an increasing number of 
magazine articles and books. That is what one 
may sometimes see set forth on the stage. Just 
now it is a popular cry to raise : the narrowness, 
the formalism of the Church, and by contrast, 
the responsiveness and the great-heartedness of 
"the common people." It takes no special cour- 
age, nor breadth of mind, to raise such a cry; 
for, as I said, it is become a popular one. But 
I believe it to be essentially false. I believe it 
to be mischievous. It never was true that the 
term "common people" as used in the Gospels, 
meant the working poor. The word translated 
"common" simply means many. "The many 
people heard Him gladly"; that is, the crowd; 
the crowd that thronged Him in Galilee. 

The multitudes in Galilee were the "gentiles." 
It had been predicted long before that the gen- 
tiles would come to His light. "Galilee of the 
gentiles" was specified. It was foreseen that the 
Jewish Church, because of the construction which 
it put upon the Messianic promises, would reject 
the Christ as a blasphemer. It was also foreseen 
that there were many people to whom His com- 
ing would be as the coming of a great Light, 
suddenly illuminating their darkened world. The 
statement in Mark — "the common people", liter- 
ally, the many people, "heard Him gladly" is a 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 69 

fulfilment of this anticipation. They were not 
a particular class, as for instance the working 
class, or the poor. There were plenty of Jewish 
workingmen and Jewish poor, who indignantly 
arrayed themselves against the Lord of Life. 
Up there in Galilee there had been such a large 
admixture of foreign elements, due to the fre- 
quent conquests of the land, that the people, orig- 
inally Jewish, came to be looked down upon by 
the Jerusalem Jews as outsiders. There were 
well-to-do people among them. There were in- 
telligent men among them. We make a great mis- 
take, and we draw a false inference, if we think 
of them as a forlorn, indigent, down-trodden 
class. Andrew and Peter, James and John 
were not men of this type. They were thrifty 
men. They were men of intelligence. In point 
of fact, the Galileans were noted for their inde- 
pendence of character. They had good hearts. 
They had sound minds. They were without spir- 
itual arrogance. They were teachable. 

To these people the Lord turned after the 
Jews had repudiated Him. Into "Galilee of the 
gentiles" He came, after more than a year de- 
voted to the Judean ministry, so barren in its 
results. Here the conditions were different. 
Here it was not a question of doctrine. True, 
there were Scribes and Pharisees in every town 
who lost no opportunity to throw suspicion upon 
Him. But the people took Him as they found 
Him. And the beauty of this Galilean ministry 



70 RELIGION AND LIFE 

is just this : that judging Him by His life among 
them, they were drawn to Him with a confidence, 
with an affection, and with a reverence that made 
it possible for them to serve as the substance out 
of which the Christian Church has sprung. To 
put it in a different way : They took Him as He 
was, with every appearance of human limitations 
like themselves; they listened to His words, 
which, simple as they seemed, yet opened up 
heights and depths of wisdom undreamed before; 
they saw His deeds, wonderful, helpful, yet al- 
ways betokening a power intent on bestowing 
blessings more vital than those of the body ; they 
followed Him about from place to place, only to 
find that in a way unlooked for He was become 
their Way, their Truth, and their Life. The 
Jews had judged Him by their books and their 
traditions, and they said with scorn : "This is 
not the Christ/' The Gentiles took Him as He 
was, and more and more surely they felt that "in 
Him was life, and the life was the light of men." 

Those were wonderful days in Galilee, com- 
prising a period of nineteen months, lived by the 
sea, among the mountains, in humble dwellings, 
during which most of the deeds of miracle and 
grace of which we have the record were per- 
formed! Days of acceptance! Days in which 
the life of the Son of Man was proving itself 
to be the very life of God upon the earth! 

And the lesson which seems to shine out 
clearly from this Galilean ministry is this fact 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 71 

of the Personal Lord; the actual love and wis- 
dom of God ministering to human needs, life 
to life; sharing our experiences; opening up a 
way of life so true, so sure, and yet so plain that 
no wayfaring man need err therein ; putting forth 
a power to which we may still appeal to heal our 
infirmities, to remove tormenting evils, to smooth 
out storms of passion. To this Lord, the good 
gentiles with teachable minds, and with souls that 
were hungering and thirsting after righteousness, 
turned with wonder and gladness. With this 
material He began the upbuilding of His Church 
on earth. And the true Church of Christ to-day 
is formed of that same material : the people who 
are teachable in spirit, and who want to live the 
life that leads to heaven. Such are drawn by 
the invitation: "Come unto Me." Such are 
moved by that high call to live : "Follow Me !" 



12.— THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 
V. The Per^ean Ministry. 

"Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing near 
unto Him to hear Him. And both the Pharisees and the 
Scribes murmured, saying: This man receiveth sinners, and 
eateth with them." — Luke xv:i-2. 

The Peraean ministry, so called, lasted about 
four months. It gets its name from the region 
into which our Lord came when the Galilean min- 
istry was ended. Persea was outside of the Holy 
Land. It was a region on the east side of the 
Jordan. It was a heathen land. The popula- 
tion in the several large towns which dotted this 
region, was for the most part coarse and ignor- 
ant. Into this province, among these people, 
our Lord came. To outward appearances, they 
must have seemed like the least promising, the 
most forbidding class to whom He had yet min- 
istered. He was on His way to Jerusalem for 
the last time, knowing that He was to lay down 
His life. Instead of going straight through the 
Holy Land, He planned this ministry in Peraea. 
He planned it with great care, selecting seventy 
of His followers, and "sending them forth two 

7^ 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 73 

by two into every village and town whither He 
Himself would come." 

And then He came; came into the midst of all 
this coarseness, and turbulence, and ignorance; 
came in the same wonderful way which always 
marked His coming: without ostentation, with- 
out a trace of scorn, with sympathy, with firm- 
ness. For four months He gave Himself to 
these people. Do we realize that it was among 
them that He delivered some of the most beau- 
tiful of His teachings? To whom was the 
parable of the Good Samaritan spoken? To 
whom did He tell the parable of the man who 
built great barns and filled them, heedless of his 
soul or of God? To whom did He tell that ex- 
quisite nature-story of the possibilities locked up 
within a tiny mustard seed, as a sign of the pos- 
sibilities of a little genuine spirituality? To 
whom did He say that the kingdom of heaven 
was like a bit of leaven, producing ferment, and 
then sweetness — just as the struggle in tempta- 
tion is intended to do? To whom did He offer 
the encouragement of the teaching, that any good 
shepherd would be willing to tramp the hills in 
search of a sheep that had strayed away and be- 
come lost, and that he would feel an uncommon 
joy in finding the poor, silly thing, and bringing 
it back on his shoulder? The parable of the 
Pharisee and the Publican who went up into the 
temple to pray, one so sure that he was righteous, 
the other so conscious that he was sinful; the 



74 RELIGION AND LIFE 

parable of the laborers in the vineyard — to whom 
were they first spoken? In whose midst was 
it that He took up little children in His arms, 
laid His hands upon them and blessed them? 
The people of Peraea! an obscure, a dull, an out- 
cast people! 

"Now all the publicans and sinners were draw- 
ing near unto Him to hear Him." What an 
approach ! And then He related three parables : 
the lost sheep, the lost piece of silver, and the 
prodigal son, — parables which tell of the divine 
joy in reclaiming "that which was lost." Ah, Di- 
vine Love is not blind! There is no glossing 
over evil conditions, and making them appear as 
if they were lily-white. Love knows. Here is 
baseness. These men have gone astray. Their 
Divine Friend will not weakly flatter them, or 
represent them as blameless. Every man in that 
crowd, if he understood the parables at all, knew 
who the lost sheep was, and who the lost piece 
of silver, and who the lost son. 

And the Pharisees, who stood there watching, 
sneering, boiling with indignation? Have we 
ever thought what a wonderful parable that was 
for them — this parable of the Prodigal Son? 
We think of it as one of the most beautiful par- 
ables ever told to teach the possibilities of re- 
pentance, and of the divine joy over all, who, 
shamed by their sins, and sick at heart, remember 
the goodness of God, and with the confession of 
sin and unworthiness trembling upon their lips, 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 75 

bend their steps towards their heavenly Father's 
house. It is a parable, we say, to be repeated in 
missions and to be told in the slums; a parable 
for the men who fain would fill their bellies with 
the husks that swine do eat. But these peo- 
ple with the sneer upon their lips about "the 
Friend of publicans and sinners ?" Had the par- 
able nothing to say to them ? Who is this "elder 
brother/' who conceives himself to have been 
entitled to everything his father had to give be- 
cause he had served Him obediently, and who 
thought it not wrong to feel angry when a 
younger brother, who had deserted his father's 
house and wasted his substance in riotous living, 
returned home penitent and was received with 
joy? The elder brother is out in the field. Evi- 
dently he is no idler. Then he comes to the 
house. He encounters the great joy within it. 
He feels aggrieved. He has no brotherly feel- 
ing. "Lo! these many years do I serve thee," 
he exclaims bitterly. He will not go in. Did 
the Pharisee feel the same way towards the lost 
whom the Lord had found and restored to spirit- 
ual life? 

The lesson of this Peraean ministry? It is to 
try to take into our souls something of the love 
that could come "to seek and to save that which 
was lost." It is to try to realize that this is the 
very love of God, now as then. It is to try to 
avoid the feeling that there are certain people 
to whom it is impossible that love should go. 



76 RELIGION AND LIFE 

There are situations which come in life when the 
hardest thing in the world is to avoid bitterness 
and contempt, and to live up to the truth that we 
are all the children of our Father in heaven. God 
knows how hard such situations are. Yes, that 
is it— He knows. For as a Psalm has put it : 
"He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that 
we are dust." In garments of our mortal nature 
He stood in the midst of all this throbbing life 
of ours; could feel the indignation of the Phari- 
see, and, not less surely, the meanness of the 
Publican; could withstand the contempt of the 
one by letting him see how, beyond all bounds 
of what man regards as possible or reasonable, 
Infinite Love will go; and in the case of the 
other He was sometimes able to reach back 
through sordidness and meanness and quicken a 
better self, capable of responding to His "Fol- 
low Me!" If we would carry this central truth 
of the ministry of the Friend of publicans and 
sinners through the experiences of one week, it 
would bring into the days an influence that would 
help us more than once to repress some word or 
feeling of contempt; and encourage us to make 
some generous effort, which would carry out the 
spirit of His gracious plea : "They that are 
whole have no need of a physician, but they that 
are sick ; . . . for I am not come to call the 
righteous, but sinners to repentance." 



13.— THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 
VI. The Final Offer. 

"Jesus therefore came out, wearing the crown of thorns 
and the purple garment. And He saith unto them, Behold, 
the man !" — John xix :6. 

The Lord had been lied against by false wit- 
nesses. He had been accused of blasphemy and 
declared guilty of death. He had been tricked 
out as a king in a purple robe, and a crown of 
thorns had been placed upon His head amid 
roars of laughter. He had been cruelly whipped 
as though one of the meanest criminals, His 
back given to the smiters. Pilate was making one 
more effort to save this Being whose presence 
awed and troubled him. "Behold (he cried) I 
bring Him out to you, that ye may know that I 
find no crime in Him." And then out of the 
Praetor ium, came the Son of Man in the cruel 
and ridiculous finery in which He had been ar- 
rayed ; and, standing there, He exclaimed : "Be- 
hold, the man!" He said that. Our Gospels 
make it appear that these are the words of Pilate ; 
and they are always quoted in that way. But the 
word "Pilate" does not appear in the original. 
It seems as if the translators themselves shrank 

77 



;8 RELIGION AND LIFE 

from the tremendous assertion which is here 
made ; or as if they regarded it as compromising 
the Lord's divinity. The words have been put 
in the mouth of Pilate; in which case they would 
mean no more than this : "Behold, here He is ; 
here is this fellow, this harmless creature whom 
you accuse and whose death you demand. " But 
that is not it at all. "Jesus therefore came out, 
wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. 
And He saith unto them, 'Behold, the man!' " It 
is the Lord who said that ; and the assertion was 
momentous. 

Only a few hours previously, standing before 
the Sanhedrin, He had answered the high priest's 
challenge, and declared Himself to be the Christ, 
or Messiah. There was no question in their 
minds but that in doing so He regarded Himself 
as divine. They had one word with which they 
characterized this claim: "Blasphemy." They 
had one punishment which they considered ade- 
quate to expiate such sacrilege : Death. The 
Lord submitted to this. He understood it bet- 
ter than you or I can ever hope to understand it. 
And now, a few hours later, after He had been 
made the sport of His enemies, He came forth ; 
and instead of saying: "Behold, the Christ, 
whom you are about to crucify !" He said, "Be- 
hold, the Man !" 

Was He, then, retracting? Was He saying: 
"You have misunderstood Me. I may have mis- 
led you ?" Retraction ? There was no least sign 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 79 

of that. Rather He was pushing on in this 
dreadful tragedy. He reached a supreme mo- 
ment. He had declared Himself to be the divine 
Christ. All His teaching, all His ministry had 
stood for that. No sneers, no threats had made 
Him waver for one instant. And now came the 
strangest truth of all : "I, your Lord and Mas- 
ter; I, the veritable Christ of God, am Man; — 
not a man, but Man, the Man." We try to 
prove that the Lord was divine; and lo, we find 
Him the Divine One, bidding us know that the 
strangest thing about His Godship is that He is 
man ! 

This ought to help us in our thought of the 
Divine. How do we know but that God is an 
infinite universal power, with no more person- 
ality than characterizes the power of gravitation? 
" Behold, the man!" How do we know but that 
men like Herbert Spencer are right, and that 
God, even if He be God, is unknowable? "Be- 
hold, the man!" How do we know but that the 
deists are right, and that God, although He cre- 
ated the universe, is too infinitely above it to be 
immanent in it? "Behold, the man!" How do 
we know that God really loves the world ? "Be- 
hold, the man!" Why should we presume to 
think that He is concerned in any way with 
our cares or our struggles, our misfortunes 
or our successes, the boast of the wicked, or 
the sighing of a contrite heart? "Behold, the 
Man!" 



80 RELIGION AND LIFE 

Consider these splendid words of one of the 
greatest of our poets : 

"I think this is the authentic sign and seal 
Of Godship ; that it ever waxes glad, 
And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts 
Into a rage to suffer for mankind, 
And recommence at sorrow." * 

One will have to go far to find so bold an as- 
sertion of the nature of the Divine Love : — Love 
so wrapt up in man that it must needs burst into 
a passionate desire to suffer for him ; and instead 
of calling to him from inaccessible heights of 
holiness, let him feel the pressure of its life in 
this world of struggle as of man with man. How 
fitly this falls in with the very picture which the 
Gospels give us of the Lord wearing a crown of 
thorns, enduring suffering, enduring shame at the 
very moment when He cries : "Behold, the 
Man!" How wonderful that crown of thorns 
becomes if we think of it as a sign of "the rage 
to suffer for mankind, and recommence at sor- 
row!" How wonderful it is to add to the con- 
ception that God is Love and Wisdom this other : 
that God is supremely Man — not the biggest man, 
nor yet the most powerful man, nor the best man 
« — but Man; definitely, distinctly, supremely 
Man; more willing than any most considerate 
man is willing, to give of Himself to others; 
more absorbed than any most devoted man is ab- 

* Robert Browning. 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 81 

sorbed in another's welfare; more patient, more 
sympathetic, more appreciative, more faithful 
than it is possible for any human being to be ! 

"Behold, the Man !" Alas, I have no words fit 
to set forth the sublime truth which the Lord in- 
tended should penetrate our intelligence and lay 
hold of our hearts. For out of this what a lesson 
there is that comes down to us ! What shall we 
wish to have at the heart of our religion? Spirit- 
uality? Faith? The Love of God? Yes. But let 
us know that they are real and supremely great 
just in the degree that they inspire us with the 
desire to be true men; unselfish men; devoted 
men; helpful men; men with clean hands and 
pure hearts; never too superb to be willing to 
render some service which it is possible for our 
hands to do ; never so honored as when by some 
word or act of faithfulness or of mercy, we are 
enabled to do the will of God, and to prove our- 
selves to be unselfish men, efficient men, worthy 
of Him who cried : 

"Behold, the Man!" 



14.— THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

VII. Having Part in the First Resur- 
rection. 

A LESSON FOR EASTER DAY. 

"Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resur- 
rection : over these the second death hath no power." — Rev. 
xx. 6. 

The wonderfulness of the resurrection of our 
Lord and the great privilege of believing in it 
heart and soul are here set before us in words 
that fairly throb with joy and exultation. For 
all Christian men "the first resurrection" stands 
for that event which we commemorate every 
Easter. It is first in the sense that it is pre- 
eminent; that it stands forth with an assurance, 
with a wealth of spiritual significance, a radiance 
of joy and a power of divine uplift which set it 
before the world as something transcendent and 
unique. To have a share in it through faith 
and a life of high endeavor, is declared to be an 
experience that is both blessed and holy. 

It is good to remember that when we read this 
verse we are getting first hand the impression 
which the Lord's resurrection made upon those 
who counted it the great honor of their lives to 

82 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 83 

have been witnesses of it. They are not trying 
to prove its actual occurrence. They are doing 
something that is very much more significant. 
They are telling us that in sharing His resurrec- 
tion-life — believing in it, living from it — some- 
thing blessed and holy has come into their lives. 
Blessedness means happiness. It means spiritual 
elation. It means the feeling which comes when 
fears have been removed, when the powers of the 
mind rise up with a sense of certainty and tri- 
umph; when the desires of the heart are met; and 
one feels that a great good has come, and one 
can face life with a spirit that is ready for any 
fate. Holiness means literally separateness ; 
something set apart. It means that the experi- 
ence not only arouses thoughts and emotions that 
are sacred, but they are essentially different from 
all others. "The brutish man knoweth not; 
neither doth the fool understand this." They 
may toss their heads and laugh. They may rea- 
son and welcome. The early Christians have 
left us this undoubted testimony: that to enter 
into the resurrection-life of the Lord put men in 
a class by themselves. There was no vanity 
about this. On the other hand, there was no 
shrinking from the spiritual distinction it con- 
ferred. In their eyes it made all the difference in 
the world whether a man believed and followed 
the risen Lord, or whether he doubted and ig- 
nored Him. 

It is good for us to realize how sure all this 



84 RELIGION AND LIFE 

was to those early followers. Two things are 
inseparable from that first resurrection : its cer- 
tainty, and its spirituality. There never zvas a 
truth in the history of the world that has been 
attested by such an array of facts and results as 
the truth that went forth on the lips of those first 
believers on that first Easter night. "A legend !" 
say some of the critics; "A lambent phantom!" 
An "iridescent ghost" that floated before men's 
fancy and tempted them to believe! An hallu- 
cination that took possession of a broken-hearted 
woman until she really thought that the dear 
Dead had stood before her, had spoken her name, 
and she, in an ecstasy of joy, had bowed herself 
at His feet! And because she imagined she saw 
Him, others began to imagine that they saw 
Him, too ! A trick, a mere trick ; the dead body 
taken surreptitiously away from the sepulchre by 
Joseph of Arimathea, or Nicodemus, and the 
rumor started that He was risen! And on the 
strength of these claims and hallucinations, which 
openly contradict each other, the course of his- 
tory turned abruptly! New civilizations pro- 
duced! A new type of character created! 

If this is not "solemn trifling," what is? Stu- 
dents lay much stress on the "internal evidences" 
of history. Where will one find narratives that 
appear so artless, so transparently honest as these 
gospel narratives? The disciples record it against 
themselves that they were unbelieving. Two of 
them confess that when the women brought them 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 85 

the news that they had seen a vision of angels 
who declared that He was alive, they treated the 
tidings as idle tales. They tell of one of their 
number who would not be moved by their testi- 
mony, but vowed that he would not believe until 
he had actually touched the wound-prints in His 
Master's body. Not a single follower evinced 
the faintest hope of His resurrection, notwith- 
standing His repeated declarations that He would 
rise "the third day." Mary Magdalene wept be- 
cause she imagined that the body of her Master 
had been borne away. The two men on the way 
to Emmaus talked on in their hopeless strain to 
the Stranger at their side, unaffected by the 
rumor of the morning brought to them by the 
women. The apostles, sitting behind closed doors 
that evening, were as hopeless as if no promise of 
His resurrection had ever been made ; — and this, 
notwithstanding that Peter and John had run and 
found the sepulchre empty, as the women had 
said. And yet before that night was passed, 
everything was suddenly changed. Every trace 
of dejection vanished. Sorrow was turned into 
joy ; doubt into certainty ; fear into courage. 

This was no gradual restoration. Like a flash 
in the night it came. They saw; they heard. 
He was there! there in that room with the doors 
closed! On their own confession they were 
startled: — "terrified and affrighted." But they 
heard the old familiar salutation, "Peace be 
unto you!" They saw Him stretch out His 



86 RELIGION AND LIFE 

hands reassuringly. They heard Him say : ''Be- 
hold My hands' and My feet, that it is I Myself : 
handle Me and see." He tried to quiet them. 
"Why are ye troubled? and wherefore do ques- 
tionings arise in your hearts ?" Surely, He was 
there! Then they rushed to the other extreme. 
"They believed not for joy." It could not be! 
It was too good to be true! They must be 
dreaming! But still He stood there. Again 
they heard Him say : "Peace be unto you I" 
They grew calmer. They became accustomed to 
His presence. They could gaze upon Him now. 
They could listen. And this is what followed : 

"And He said unto them: 'These are My 
words which I spake unto you while I was yet 
with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, 
which are written in the law of Moses, and in the 
prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me/ 
Then opened He their understanding that they 
might understand the Scriptures; and He said 
unto them : Thus it is written, that the Christ 
should suffer, and rise again from the dead the 
third day; and that repentance and remission of 
sins should be preached in His name unto all the 
nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Ye are wit- 
nesses of these things/ " * 

Not only was their faith restored, but their 

minds were illumined. Now they could see how 

the Scriptures, as with one broad sweep of light, 

testified of Him from end to end. It all became 

* Luke xxiv:44-50. 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 87 

clear. The truth nerved them. It swept them 
like a fire. It turned them into messengers who 
could not be silenced. With that truth they chal- 
lenged the attention of the world ; and the world 
had to listen. Do we wonder that years after- 
wards the apostle John, in his exile, should have 
been inspired to write : "Blessed and holy is he 
that hath part in the first resurrection?" Surely 
for him and for his fellow disciples it had been a 
sacred experience. It had made new men of 
them. 

This brings us to a phase of the Lord's resur- 
rection which is still more remarkable. From 
the first it was regarded as having a spiritual 
significance. It was a historical fact; but more 
wonderful still, it exprersed a law of our spiritual 
life. It will help us to understand this if we 
recall our Lord's assertion of the renewing power 
of His life: — "The hour is coming, and now is, 
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of 
God, and they that hear shall live."* 

Deep down in graves of selfishness, delusion, 
ignorance, carnality and sin many a poor soul 
was lying. But some of them heard a voice. A 
power greater than that of the moral death into 
which they had fallen reached them and quick- 
ened them. New thoughts flashed through their 
minds. New purposes animated their wills. The 
graves in which they had been buried opened. 
They came forth. 
*John v:25. 



88 RELIGION AND LIFE 

Day by day He saw people coming to life in 
this way. From "the delusions of sense/' from 
"proneness to sin/' from "tastes and longings 
ignoble, low and mean/' from "love of the 
world," from "love of self," — from these graves 
they emerged into a new and better life. It must 
have been the great joy of His ministry to bring 
about these spiritual changes. No wonder He 
had said : "I am the Resurrection and the Life." 
His the power unto a new life. And the prom- 
ise of it was so sure : "He that believeth in Me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and who- 
soever liveth and believeth in Me shall never 
die." 

How thankfully we should take up the words 
with which we began: "Blessed and holy is he 
that hath part in the first resurrection." That 
means : It is a happy and sacred experience to 
enter believingly and rejoicingly, and in a living 
way into the truth of the risen Lord; and 
through loyalty to Him to be brought into new- 
ness of life. If we have had this experience, 
even in part, we have passed or are passing the 
only death of which we have reason to be afraid : 
the death of indifference; of unbelief through 
hardness of heart ; of contempt for what is true 
and holy; the death of selfishness and sin. "Upon 
such the second death hath no power." Of the 
lesser death, the death of the body, there is noth- 
ing to fear. It shall come when it shall come, 
under the rulings of a Divine Providence that 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 89 

knows and loves, and that never slumbers nor 
sleeps. 

It is good for us to think of the dear ones 
who have passed on as having entered into the 
blessedness and holiness of eternal life, because 
while they were yet with us they had their part 
in the first resurrection. If they could speak to 
us, would they not say it was worth all the effort 
and every act of self-sacrifice they had made? 
In that new day that has dawned upon them, 
into that blessed springtime of life into which 
they are advancing, with "the peace that passeth 
all understanding' ' filling their hearts, they surely 
would wish to say to us : "Blessed and holy is he 
that hath part in the first resurrection ; over these 
the second death hath no power." 



1 5-— THE GREAT TRIUMPH. 

"Jesus saith unto her : I am the Resurrection and the 
Life ; he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet 
shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me 
shall never die. Believest thou this ?" — John xi 125, 26. 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life!" None 
but One in all the history of this world ever 
made such an assertion. The Lord made it 
while He was living in plain sight of men. He 
made it to reassure a woman whose brother was 
sleeping in the tomb. He confirmed His promise 
then. He has confirmed it ever since. For 
what do these remarkable words mean? When 
we read the word "resurrection," we naturally 
think of a rising up into life after death. We 
think of it as affirming the truth of our immor- 
tality. To many that seems such a wonderful 
thing; so wonderful that they can scarcely be- 
lieve it. They search for signs ; they search for 
arguments to reassure them on this point — some- 
thing to convince them of the two prime facts 
of existence : God and the human soul. Oh, what 
sceptics we are ! How little it takes to set men 
to doubting the things which outreach the testi- 
mony of their senses! Two prime facts: God 
and the human soul, without which we could 

90 



THE GREAT TRIUMPH 91 

not be living, much less thinking about these very 
things; and yet men shake their wise heads and 
sigh: "We cannot be sure. How do we really 
know ?" They cannot be sure that they are what 
they essentially are! They cannot refrain from 
making a problem and a mystery of that which 
should be self-evidently true! Who but a 
spiritual being could vex himself with spiritual 
questions? An animal never worries itself about 
a future life; would find it impossible to do so. 
Why? It has no spiritual nature to be troubled. 
Man does vex himself over it; discusses it; 
probes it; agonizes over it when his heart cries 
out for its dear departed dead. Why? Be- 
cause he has a soul. And yet he makes that a 
matter of speculation, which, if he were not the 
very thing which he questions, it would be im- 
possible for him to even doubt ! 

Let us be thankful, then, for those strong, un- 
flinching words of Jesus Christ : "I am the Res- 
urrection and the Life/' But let us not dwarf 
their meaning as if they were only intended to 
give us His warrant for our immortality. Im- 
mortality! immortality! What else is possible 
for men with souls in their bodies? It is far 
less wonderful that our souls live and persist in 
living when unencumbered of flesh, than that 
these material bodies seem to live, when yet they 
have absolutely no life except that which they 
derive through the soul. 

But these words of our Lord, while they do 



92 RELIGION AND LIFE 

affirm the fact of immortality, proclaim a far 
more wonderful truth. 

Take this word "resurrection." It means lit- 
erally "standing up" : Anastasis. We have no 
proper term for this. "I am the Anastasis" 
means: "I am the One who has the power to 
stand, and by whom others may derive the power 
to stand." That conveys a spiritual idea. "I 
am the One who has the power to stand up 
against all opposition, all ridicule, all persecu- 
tion, for that which is divinely good and true; 
for holiness; for the kingdom of heaven; for 
man; man a spiritual being; man the child of 
God." How perfectly our Lord lived up to that 
declaration ! How He did stand up for all these 
things! How His life to-day is supremely the 
power which stands up for them ! How, among 
His followers at least, these things get their 
power to stand up and assert their nature, be- 
cause of Him! 

And the life — what is that? The life is the 
Love ; the vital element that cares and yearns and 
burns with infinite desire that these divine prin- 
ciples which stand shall prove a blessing. 

Here, then, are two supreme powers in Jesus 
Christ our Lord: the power to bid everything 
that is noblest and best — our faith, our charity, 
our desire to be true, or unselfish, or merciful — 
to bid them rise up and stand ; and the power to 
love these things, to really care, and make them 
and keep them as the things supremely honored 



THE GREAT TRIUMPH 93 

in our existence. One makes its appeal to our 
intelligence; the other to our hearts. It belongs 
to our intelligence to wish to see the truths of 
the Christian Religion stand up in our midst, 
erect, alert, unfalteringly, rejoicingly. The 
truth of Christ; the truth of the kingdom of 
heaven; the truth of man's sonship in God; the 
truths which reveal the way of eternal life — it 
ought to concern our intelligence to have these 
truths stand up in the midst of human society 
and in our individual nature. From the risen 
Lord comes that power. They are because He 
is. Men who really believe in Him will have 
faith that these truths will prevail. 

But it belongs to our wills to love these 
things; to cherish them as sacred; to wish to 
have them pass from truths of the intelligence 
to forms of life, to actual forces bringing about 
states of good. Here again it is the Lord who 
is the inspiring power of this. For who has 
taught us what it is to truly live so surely 
as He? 

"I am the Resurrection and the life." May 
we not interpret the words as an appeal like this : 
"I am the Power Divine that prompts, ay, that 
bids the truths which I have taught you, and 
for which I stood, assert themselves in you; 
giving you faith, giving you firmness, giving you 
mental control over falsities, and doubts, and 
unworthy thoughts. And I am the Power Di- 
vine which seeks to inspire you with a spiritual 



94 RELIGION AND LIFE 

love for these truths, that they may become 
truths of life and be a help and a blessing to you 
in every situation or relation in life." Far more 
wonderful is this endowment of spiritual power 
and mastery than the mere continuation of ex- 
istence. For it means character. It means the 
element of eternal life asserting itself here and 
now when we need it so utterly. 

And see how far the Lord carries its good re- 
sults : — "Though he were dead, yet shall he live." 
It is not the death of the body which He is de- 
scribing : it is spiritual death ; indifference, inac- 
tion; that sleep, that torpor of the soul which 
thinks not, cares not for anything beyond the 
things of this present life. It is "the carnal 
mind/' And yet it may be that hidden within 
the soul, unremembered, neglected, cast aside as 
useless, are sacred truths once taught, states of 
spiritual affection once felt, which now are seem- 
ingly dead. He who declares Himself to be the 
Resurrection and the Life, says in effect : "Rouse 
up from this spiritual lethargy; look unto Me; 
listen to My words; open your soul to My 
spirit, and this deadness shall pass away. These 
spiritual elements will be quickened; they will 
stand up, and be strong, and rejoice, and love 
the life that belongs to them." 

One further promise He gives: They who 
truly believe in Him shall never die. It is His 
assurance of steadfastness, continuance in the 
true and the good, with increase in power, satis- 



THE GREAT TRIUMPH 95 

faction and peace. And then He seems to bend 
down to us, and, as if in the hope of winning 
from us some word of faith and gratitude, He 
says: 

"Believest thou this?" 



i6.— A NEW IMMORTALITY. 

"I shall go as in a festal procession all my years because 
of the bitterness of my soul." — Isaiah xxxviii:i5. 

Hezekiah was a Jewish king. He was a good 
king. He was in his prime — "in the midst of 
[his] years/' as he expressed it. He was carry- 
ing on reforms which were needed. As we some- 
times say of efficient leaders : he was the right 
man in the right place. Then suddenly he is 
stricken. Isaiah the prophet is directed to tell 
him to set his house in order and prepare to die. 
He does so; and then we have a very life-like 
picture. The king turns his face to the wall. 
He groans aloud. He does not wish to die. He 
would give anything to live. It seems to him a 
bitter thing to be stricken down when he has 
tried to be a good king. To cut off his life in 
this way seems to him as if a weaver were to 
cut from his loom the piece on which he was at 
work, and roll it up in its half -finished form. 
And so he prays to live. 

Presently Isaiah comes back with this message : 
"Thus saith the Lord : I have heard thy prayer, 
I have seen thy tears; behold, I will heal thee; 
on the third day thou shalt go unto the house 

9 6 



A NEW IMMORTALITY 97 

of the Lord/' Then follows the king's rejoic- 
ing. He is not to be cut off after all. His shep- 
herd's tent is not to be folded away. He is to 
go on mingling his life with that of fellow-men; 
still having his share in the world's work. 

But the experience through which he has 
passed, makes all this familiar life to which he 
now comes back seem different. He realizes 
within it an immortal quality such as it had not 
had before. Like other men, he had believed in 
God; but conventionally. Now he feels that he 
knows Him. He has felt the touch of His lov- 
ingkindness. For God has done more than to 
spare him: He has brought him back to life 
with a new feeling, a new purpose in his soul. 
"Thou hast loved my soul out of the pit of noth- 
ingness," he exclaims. Note the beauty of the 
figure. God has not simply snatched him from 
the jaws of death. The man feels that the great 
love of which he is conscious in that happy mo- 
ment of his returning life, has given a lift to his 
soul. As compared with what he now feels, the 
old life, which he had gone on living as though 
it would go on forever, seems like a hollow thing. 
God has loved him out of that condition, and put 
a new spirit within him. "Thou hast cast all my 
sins behind my back." In spite of blunders, er- 
rors, evils, he is to have a free chance to live out 
his life in a new way, and with a grander pur- 
pose. For it has come to mean so much more 
than ever before; and that new feeling which 



98 RELIGION AND LIFE 

wells up within him, expresses itself in the figure 
set forth in these words of the text : "I shall go 
as in a festal procession all my years because of 
the bitterness of my soul/' The bitterness of his 
soul refers to the hard experiences through which 
he has just passed. God has loved him out of 
them. From now on he will walk in a new way. 

The Lord makes it possible for men to come 
to life. We cannot tell each other with cer- 
tainty the ways in which this is done. It may 
come through some severe experience, like a 
dangerous illness, the loss of property, the re- 
moval of some one dear as life. It may come 
through less marked events ; through a succession 
of states by which we become aware of the un- 
satisfactoriness of the merely natural life; that 
there is something in us that is wanting; that 
with all that we have, with all that we do, life 
has no solid, no unifying element. We are eas- 
ily upset. We seem at the hazard of forces 
which at any time may throw our life into utter 
confusion, or completely dismantle it. 

Men with everything, apparently, to make 
them happy, often come into this dissatisfied, 
restless state of mind. And out of that vague 
feeling of want, there comes for some a new 
quality of life. The Lord loves them out of the 
pit of emptiness. Their souls get a spiritual lift. 
A new feeling comes into their hearts. They 
look at life in a new way. They see the spiritual 
purpose within it. They come to know, as though 



A NEW IMMORTALITY 99 

it were a new thing, that the essentials of life 
are, after all, the things which they had been 
tempted to think of simply as "ideal ;" and that 
to serve the Lord in love to the neighbor, to 
revere His truth, to live in the daily recognition 
of His spirit, to move with the stream of His 
Providence, to bring into all things of time the 
element of eternity, to live in the soul of things, 
rather than in their forms — that this is essen- 
tially to be brought into what may be called a 
new immortality. It is to come to life here and 
now. It is to gain eternal life without waiting 
for physical death to usher us into it. 

It is possible for us all to live in this way. 
"Who are these," it has been asked, "whom we 
can so easily distinguish from the crowd, by their 
firmness of step and look of peace, walking 
steadily where some spurt and others halt, hold- 
ing, without rest or haste, the tenor of their way, 
as if they marched to music heard by their ears 
alone?" These are they who have experienced 
this spiritual resurrection; who are living in 
faith; who are trying to live in charity; and 
who, in the consciousness that their souls have 
been loved out of a state of emptiness, can say 
with Hezekiah, "I shall go as in a festal pro- 
cession all my years because of the bitterness of 
my soul." The runner knows what it is to get 
into his "stride." Any man setting out for some 
place, knows what it is to "strike his gait." The 
Bible makes use of this figure. It says in effect : 



ioo RELIGION AND LIFE 

The man who, through spiritual struggle, has 
gained a living sense of the Lord and of His 
forgiveness; who has brought into time the ele- 
ment of eternity; who has learned that life is not 
really life without a heavenly purpose in it, — that 
man has got into his stride. Where before he 
minced along, or skipped from this place to that, 
or stumbled, now at last he has struck his gait. 
He has the right swing. He walks with firm- 
ness; he walks with dignity; he walks with an 
elastic, joyous step. Life is no longer to him 
"chance or sport, strife or hurried flight. " It 
has its sure high destiny; it has "its allotted dis- 
tance;" and through the Lord he has with others 
caught the step of a nobler life. 

We are entering upon a new week. May it be 
with a true sense of what life means, and a pur- 
pose in our souls so true, that come what may, 
we shall walk firmly on, as men, who, by the 
grace of God, are moving in festal procession to 
some great good to which He is leading us. 



I7-— THE GATES OF THE CITY. 

"And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several 
gate was of one pearl." — Rev. xxi:2i. 

Those wonderful gates ! three of them in each 
of the jewelled walls of the Great City; an angel 
at every gate as if to tell of the heavenly wel- 
come that awaits every comer from whatever 
quarter may have been his pilgrimage ! 

And why are the gates of solid pearl? 

The pearl is such a beautiful symbol; and the 
New Testament uses it so wonderfully ! In that 
little parable of the merchantman trading in 
gems, eager to give all for "the pearl of great 
price," who cannot see that it was one way in 
which the Gospels would emphasize that the 
knowledge of Jesus Christ as our Saviour is the 
supreme truth of the Christian religion? The 
symbol is so expressive! Some irritating sub- 
stance gets into the life of one of the lowliest 
members of the animal creation. To save itself 
from pain, it silently overlays it, layer upon layer, 
With some smooth white substance, which pres- 
ently becomes a gem. It is one of the most beau- 
tiful types of salvation. Sin is the irritant. It 
distresses. It cuts into the tender substances of 

IOI 



102 RELIGION AND LIFE 

the spirit. "Look unto Me and be ye saved," 
whispers a voice. The salvation of God! Sin 
bruises, and burns, and threatens to eat its way 
into one's life. Self-accusations, temptations, 
contritions, the turning in faith for the divine 
protection and forgiveness — these are among the 
secret processes by which the spirit of God en- 
ables a man to form for himself a principle of 
salvation which shall not only protect him from 
the deadly hurt of evil, but which shall also bless 
and enrich his life. 

The Lord was speaking to the multitude in 
parables. He was characterizing some of the 
divine phases of His work, — as when, to illus- 
trate His work of teaching, He represented Him- 
self as going forth into the world to sow the seed, 
which is His Word. A number of little parables 
followed. Among them was this one about the 
pearl. It is as if the Lord reached into the sea, 
and, drawing forth one of its gems, held it up as 
the beautiful emblem of His salvation. "A pearl 
of great price," the parable calls it, for which a 
man might well sell all that he had that he might 
possess it. The Saviourhood of Jesus Christ : — 
that is the pearl of the New Testament. 

Rightly does the parable claim this fact of sal- 
vation as the most precious among all the truths 
which it has to offer concerning the Lord. He 
is the Saviour of men. A spirit of love and wis- 
dom goes forth from Him; it enters into man's 
tempted life, restless through sin. It applies it- 



THE GATES OF THE CITY 103 

self to him. It quiets his evil thoughts. It cools 
the raging of selfish lusts. It instructs, it com- 
forts, it brings assurance of the divine forgive- 
ness. The heart of Infinite Love rejoices over 
one sinner that repenteth. He will go any length 
to rescue him; to be his Saviour. More than 
Creator; more than King will He be. "In all 
their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of 
His presence saved them ; in His love and in His 
pity He redeemed them. ... So He was 
their Saviour." 

The beautiful words are a Christ-prophecy. 
The divinest possibilities of Infinite Love and 
Wisdom are realized in the Incarnation. "They 
shall call His name JESUS, for He shall save 
His people from their sins." Oh, the depth of 
it ! the toil of it ! the prayers in secret ! the strug- 
gle with evil ! the kindly companionship with dull 
and unattractive lives! the faithful ministrations 
to those too slow of heart to believe all that the 
prophets had spoken! the exposure to the slights 
and injuries of the supercilious and the brutal ! 
the endurance of wrong! the laying down of life 
with the prayer of forgiveness on the lips and a 
cry of thankfulness that the work was done! 
And all for what? That the Christ-spirit in 
God, actualizing itself by incarnation in the Lord 
Jesus, might be man's Saviour! We try to put 
this truth into words. We try to say how won- 
derful and how essential it is. Here is an em- 
blem : a pearl of great price. And here is a lit- 



104 RELIGION AND LIFE 

tie parable that goes with it : a merchant looking 
for gems, and finding one of highest value, he 
went and sold all that he had, and bought it. 
How quickly, ah, how quietly the story of the 
Great Love that came to us is told ! 

And then the symbol is carried up to heaven. 
In groups of three, set in walls of precious stones, 
opening north and south, east and west, are gates 
of solid pearl. They give entrance into the Holy 
City. They open upon streets of gold which 
lead to the tree of life. An angel is at every 
gate. 

The symbolism is so wonderful and it has a 
message for our times. A great search is going 
on. It is to find the vital truth of the Christian 
religion. Such a search is sure to bring men 
together at the gates of the Holy City. For 
there is one fact common to all who are entered 
upon this quest : the Saviourhood of Jesus Christ. 
Men differ when they come to formulate this 
into a doctrine ; but the fact itself is there : Jesus 
Christ the Saviour of men. This is the entrance- 
way to deeper things about Him and about His 
religion. But it is the entrance. "I am the 
Door." We dispute over terms ; we make differ- 
ences and enlarge upon them. But it is wonder- 
ful to see how all men who truly search for the 
Lord are brought to these gates of pearl. For 
all unite in according to Him this unique, this 
august position: He is the Saviour of men. 

And it is so good to see that although every 



THE GATES OF THE CITY 105 

several gate is of one pearl, yet there are twelve 
of them, and they are grouped on all four sides 
of the Holy City. For men in their search are 
coming from such widely different quarters! 
They hold such different views ! Their tempera- 
ments are so different! Nevertheless they shall 
all come up to these gates of pearl. This fact 
of the Saviourhood of the Lord shall be at once 
goal and entrance. 

Is it not good, is it not reassuring to have this 
picture of the gates of pearl in the vision of the 
City? Do not the angels who stand there, do 
not the streets of gold upon which each gate 
opens, and which lead to the tree of life, — do not 
these things awaken high hopes of the great 
blessing which is sure to come to all who, con- 
scious of sin, will seek, and appreciate, and util- 
ize the saving power of the Lord ? 
"And they are saved who believe in Him, 

And keep the commandments of His Word. 

This is His commandment : 

That we love one another. 

As He hath loved us." * 



* Faith of the Neiv Church. 



1 8.— THE SEARCH OF THE ANGELS. 

"And then shall He send His angels, and shall gather to- 
gether His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost 
part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven." — Mark 
xiii \2j. 

This verse has its place in our Lord's descrip- 
tion of His Second Advent. That Advent was 
to be the bright and happy culmination of a se- 
ries of tremendous events and dire catastrophes. 
The whole earth is described as being in the 
throes of a great convulsive struggle : — nations 
warring against each other; kingdoms fighting 
one another; earthquakes, famines, pestilences; 
people fleeing to mountains for refuge, others 
praying upon their house-tops. And then the 
sun goes out into blackness, the moon no longer 
shines, the stars fall from their high places, and 
the very heavens are all of a tremble and seem 
on the point of collapse. But all at once the 
scene brightens. The judgment struggle is over. 
The bruised earth lies helpless and still. And 
there in divine radiance is the figure of the Son 
of Man "coming in the clouds with power and 
great glory." And our text declares that with 
I lis advent there is instantly this world-wide 
effort to gather together into a blessed com- 

106 



THE SEARCH OF THE ANGELS 107 

pany "the elect/' who, in this time of judgment, 
have been scattered far and wide. To the utter- 
most parts of the earth, to the farthest bounda- 
ries of heaven, angels are sent on their errands 
of mercy. East, west, north and south they speed 
on their way ; and presently they are seen return- 
ing — here with one, there with another, a chosen 
few brought together that they may form the 
nucleus of a new humanity, a new Church. 

When our Lord spoke the words set down in 
this thirteenth chapter of Mark, there remained 
but a few days before His cruel rejection by 
men. It would be a heavy blow to His little 
band of followers. It would look as if He had 
failed ; and His claim to being the promised Mes- 
siah, the Redeemer and Saviour of men, would 
seem for the moment to be a bitter and ghastly 
mockery. Apparently His enemies would be jus- 
tified in thinking that they had rid the world of 
a blasphemous pretender and that this was the 
last that they should ever hear of Him. 

And so, in perfect quiet, resting on the Mount 
of Olives in the peace of the evening, with the 
twelve gathered about Him, looking over at the 
white temple whose destruction He had fore- 
told, He related this parable of His Second Com- 
ing — for it is as much of a parable as where, 
in the Gospel of Matthew, He draws the picture 
of Himself as the Son of Man "and all the holy 
angels with Him" judging over the nations, di- 
viding the sheep from the goats. Yes, appar- 



108 RELIGION AND LIFE 

ently His work would go for nought ; and farther 
into the future than their eyes could see, His reli- 
gion would seem to be going out in a carnival 
of corruption and an accumulation of false dog- 
mas rendering the Church as benighted as be- 
fore He had revealed His truth. And still, in 
spite of threatened catastrophe, He would live. 
He would live, and He would return — not phys- 
ically, but spiritually and by a new and fuller 
unfolding of His truth. A new day would dawn ; 
a new age would be begun; a new vision or un- 
derstanding of Him — more spiritual than before 
— would be made possible through the opening 
of His Word. It would be a wonderful time 
when He would thus come. Immediately pre- 
ceding it there would be a vast overturning, 
world-wide changes, agitations, perplexities, 
doubt, unbelief, wickedness, "men's hearts fail- 
ing them for fear." And then quietly, "without 
observation," but surely, after old things had 
passed away and many a false dogma had 
breathed its last, He would come in a new utter- 
ance of Christian truth, and a new acceptance of 
Him in His Divine Humanity. 

We are living in the very days when these 
things are being accomplished. Obviously there 
has been a tremendous judgment. Christendom 
has been shaken to its foundations. False dog- 
mas, ecclesiastical tyrannies, bigotries, hypocri- 
sies, have been uncovered and condemned. Men 
are aware of this, yet have not learned to connect 



THE SEARCH OF THE ANGELS 109 

it with the Lord's instruction about His Second 
Advent. There is a new spirit abroad, — a spirit 
of spiritual and intellectual liberty, a spirit of 
fraternity in which the peoples of the earth are 
being brought nearer together. There is not a 
form of human industry, there is not a profession 
that is not feeling the breath of a new spirit 
blowing upon it. 

We are only in the beginning of this great 
vivifying, reconstructive movement. And this is 
what takes place : the bringing together of all 
things that are genuinely true and good, which 
the Lord may be said to have chosen as the ele- 
ments in the upbuilding of a new humanity. It 
ought to be a joy to believe that scattered 
throughout the movements of the day, in the 
inventions in which we rejoice, the commerce, the 
politics, the philanthropy, the sociology, the sci- 
ence, the art, the education, the religion — scat- 
tered through them all, there are elements of 
enduring value which the Lord needs in the up- 
building of human society in true heavenly order. 
The work is far from being done. But as we 
think of it, is it not a carrying out of this divine 
promise: "And then He shall send His angels, 
and shall gather together His elect from the four 
winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to 
the uttermost part of heaven"? Call them "an- 
gels," call them true men and women; (for the 
word "angel" means messenger,) and there is 
never a true man or woman filled with the Lord's 



no RELIGION AND LIFE 

spirit, who does this work of reclaiming and es- 
tablishing anything which is eternally good and 
true, who is not one of His messengers doing 
angels' work. 

Take this symbolism now, and translate it into 
our personal needs and experiences. For each 
man's life is a world in miniature; and to it the 
Lord seeks to make His spiritual advent, bring- 
ing about in him the dawning of a new day and 
the upbuilding of a more truly Christian char- 
acter. 

And as in the world at large so in man : — first 
the judgment. Let us not be afraid of the truth. 
In every true man's life there must be that process 
of separating the good from the evil, the true 
from the false. We are apt to try to avoid this. 
It is often very hard to say of a thing in our- 
selves: "This is wrong; this standard accord- 
ing to which I am thinking, judging, acting, is 
false; this way of life which I find so pleasant 
is unworthy." It is so much easier to judge our- 
selves by lower standards, or not to judge our- 
selves at all, but simply go on in a natural effort 
to get along in the world as well and as pleas- 
antly as we can ! 

But let this work of judgment be done ; let the 
vain shallow things be blown away as so much 
chaff ; the evil things, the false things be acknowl- 
edged as evil and false, and an effort made to 
renounce them ; and then these prophecies of the 
Lord's coming as the spirit of truth will begin to 



THE SEARCH OF THE ANGELS 1 1 1 

claim their fulfilment. More and more surely 
the Son of Man will begin to shine out in the 
heaven of our higher nature. If we are simply 
living superficial, pleasure-loving lives, how can 
we be greatly influenced by Him ? But let a man 
suffer the Lord's truth to judge him; and let 
him be in the sincere effort to conform his life 
to those judgments, and surely these words of 
the gospel will be fulfilled in him: "And then 
shall they see the Son of Man coming in the 
clouds of heaven with power and great glory/' 

Then comes this other, this beautiful promise 
of the sending forth of the angels to gather "the 
elect" from the four winds, from the uttermost 
part of the earth, to the uttermost part of 
heaven. Who does not see what the promise 
means ? The message, translated, runs like this : 
"There is no part of your natural life, no experi- 
ence in it so remote, so obscure that the Lord, 
through manifold agencies which He employs, 
will not try to gather out of it every least or 
greatest thought, affection, or deed which He can 
make serviceable in the building up of your true 
nature. And there is no part of your spiritual 
nature so hidden, so sacred, so little known to 
yourself, that from it, through invisible and 
precious ministries made possible through Him, 
He will not strive to bring together elements of 
eternal life." Any truth to which we have been 
true in any most humble duty, any good affection 
which we have put into the most commonplace 



ii2 RELIGION AND LIFE 

deed, any principle to which we were loyal in 
some temptation or sorrow, any ideal, any pure 
affection of our spiritual nature — these shall be 
searched for, and brought together and formed 
into the Christian character which the Lord is 
ever seeking to develop. 

How all-embracing the terms are ! "From the 
uttermost part of the earth, to the uttermost part 
of heaven !" From the least to the greatest; from 
the earliest, most innocent impressions and beliefs 
of infancy and childhood; to the wisest, matur- 
est experiences of old age! 

And the practical lesson of it seems to be : do 
your earnest best; let your life be judged by the 
judgment of God; let the Son of Man be a living 
reality in the heaven of your soul ; and there is 
nothing which the infinite love and wisdom of 
the Lord will not do to weld together into a truly 
harmonious, Christian life every least or great- 
est truth and good that you have made your own 
through love, faith and obedience. 



I9-— THE WATCH OF THE CHERUBIM. 

I. 

"And He placed at the east of the garden of Eden the 
Cherubim, and the flame of a sword which turned every 
way, to keep the way of the tree of life." — Gen. iii 124. 

God has given the cherubim the appearance of 
reality because they express so much that is vital. 
For the moment let us think, let us speak of them 
as if they were veritable beings. One thing we 
can surely understand about them: they personify 
a holy power that would guard our spiritual life, 
that would protect our eternal interests. That 
idea of guardianship is emphasized every time 
they appear. When, in the parable of the gar- 
den of Eden, Adam is represented as having 
disobeyed and made it impossible for him to con- 
tinue in the life of simple, childlike innocence in 
which God first created him; when, to apply 
the parable to our own conditions, a man has 
deliberately chosen to live, not from a sense of 
dependence upon the love and wisdom of God, 
but from a principle of self -intelligence and self- 
righteousness (represented by eating of the for- 
bidden fruit of "the tree of the knowledge of good 
and evil") ; and when, as the result of this wilful 
assertion of self-life he imagines himself to "be 

113 



ii4 RELIGION AND LIFE 

as God knowing good and evil/' insisting that he 
knows what is best for him and that he will have 
his own way — when that befalls, and the veil of 
innocence is brushed aside with his own hand, 
and he is ready to do and dare all to assert what 
he calls his own proper life ; then, when all human 
or heavenly counsel will not avail, and the man 
in the pride and folly of his self-life would not 
hesitate to violate the deepest things of his na- 
ture, then these mysterious beings called the 
"cherubim" are ranged in front of the tree of 
life. They are there as guards, indeed; but the 
strangely pathetic part of it is that they are there 
to protect the man against himself. With this 
pride in his mind, with this spirit of self-assert- 
iveness and bravado in his heart, determined to 
live out his life in his own way, God sets a limit 
to his folly. If possible he shall be prevented 
from desecrating the deeper ranges of his nature. 
Better that he should be a man without faith, if, 
having it, he would in the end desecrate it and 
turn it into a lie. Better that he should not enter 
into the experiences of the spiritual life, if that 
were to result in a prostitution of its ideals and 
its emotions to his self-will. Better that he 
should be consciously kept from that inmost part 
of his being in which the life of God gives itself 
to him so immediately and unreservedly, if a fact 
so holy were to be swallowed up in pride. Is it 
not against perversions and violations of this 
kind, so fatal in their consequences, that the Lord 



THE WATCH OF THE CHERUBIM 115 

said it is sometimes better that men should not 
perceive with their eyes, nor hear with their 
ears, nor understand with their hearts, nor be 
converted ? 

When a man sins in outward ways it is always 
bad for him. If he is carried away by any of 
the lusts of the flesh, if his tastes are low, the 
man is as one who walks or wallows in mire; 
and we cry "Shame!" If, with a better show 
of respectability, he yet pursues a selfish, worldly 
course, bent on pleasure, gain, power, with no 
thought, no wish for anything that is above his 
own immediate interests and pleasures, we might 
say, if our conscience did not smite us, "What 
folly!" But the deepest harm of all would be 
for a man to have the doors of his spiritual na- 
ture thrown open — in other words, to be "born 
from above" — before he is ready for so great a 
change, to think as angels think, to feel as angels 
feel, only to turn against these very things and 
mock them in the end. This is to break down 
the very structure of the soul, and leave it a 
violated, mangled thing. 

Against such mortal injury the Divine Provi- 
dence, we are assured, does everything — within 
the limits of our freedom — to protect us. That 
protection is represented by the cherubim keep- 
ing the way of the tree of life. For the tree of 
life, in the midst of the garden, clearly stands for 
the life of God communicating itself to us in the 
deepest and holiest part of our nature; and this is 



n6 RELIGION AND LIFE 

something which must be preserved as a possibil- 
ity in all. 

These titanic figures, then, stand for this great, 
this unwearying purpose of the Divine Provi- 
dence to protect and to promote our spiritual 
well-being. The eternal element in our lives, we 
are assured, is never lost sight of in the multiplic- 
ity of temporal concerns which to us seem so ab- 
sorbing and so essential. This is as true of the 
man who is well-favored as the man who seems 
to have everything against him. Here is a child 
who is mentally deficient. He was born so. He 
will never be able to think or work like some of 
his companions. Here is a man whose faculties 
have in some way been stunted in their develop- 
ment. Physically, mentally, morally, he is infe- 
rior to his fellows. Instances of this kind — and 
they seem all too many — tax our resourcefulness, 
our patience, our belief. Remember the sign : the 
cherubim are keeping the way of the tree of life. 
There is an inmost part of that child or that man 
that is spiritual. The life of God is given to it 
as freely as to the well-born child or the normally 
developed man. What can be done is done for 
the other parts of their nature. Yet if the im- 
pediments are such as to make a proper develop- 
ment impossible; if incompetency, and a low con- 
dition of life both mentally and morally are the 
result, the Divine Providence, we are assured, 
holds such in a state of blamelessness. They are 
not condemned for their shiftlessness or their 



THE WATCH OF THE CHERUBIM 117 

evils. They must pass through life as best they 
can; and the judgment passed is not upon them 
so much, as upon those who are mean enough to 
abuse and take advantage of their hard condi- 
tion, or who fail to show them consideration. 
Their spiritual nature is closely guarded. It is 
like the tree of life in the midst of the garden 
before which stand the cherubim. They them- 
selves cannot approach it; and we are told that 
when they enter the other world they enter it in 
a state of blamelessness. The soul of that defi- 
cient child or of that ill-born man is undeveloped 
and unregenerated ; but the cherubim have kept 
the way of the tree of life; and now that the 
hindering conditions are removed, the Lord and 
His angels will cause it to unfold and grow. 

And for him who has tried manfully to do his 
best, the watch of the cherubim will also bring a 
joy. We may none of us get very far in the 
regenerate life; but if we have made a fair be- 
ginning, we are assured that the work begun will 
be carried to its completion. That means that 
after further instruction, experience, and heav- 
enly encouragement the way to the tree of life 
will be open, and the condition will be realized of 
which it is written : 

"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree 
of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." 



20.— THE HELP OF THE CHERUBIM. 

II. 

"And this was their appearance : They had the likeness 
of a man; and every one had four faces, and every one of 
them had four wings; and they had the hands of a man 
under their wings on their four sides; and they four had 
their wings and their faces thus: their wings were joined 
one to another; they turned not when they went; they 
went every one of them straight forward. As for the like- 
ness of their faces, they had the face of a man, and they 
four had the face of a lion on the right side ; and they 
four had the face of an ox on the left side ; they four had 
also the face of an eagle." — Ezekiel i :5-6, 8-10. 

Strange, composite creatures! Four faces; 
wings with hands under the wings; hasting at 
times, resting ; their movements identified in some 
mysterious way with the appearance and the 
sound of whirring wheels — "wheels within 
wheels" — coals of fire among the wheels, and this 
entire apparition pervaded by eyes! So utterly 
unlike anything or anyone we have ever known, 
and yet devoted with an infinite devotion to man's 
care ! 

Can our thoughts, can our deeper human inter- 
ests go out to anything quite so strange and 
stupendous? They are symbol figures pure and 
simple. They have no personal life, whether 
angelic or human. And yet let us not disregard 

118 



THE HELP OF THE CHERUBIM 119 

the cherubim. Strange as was their appearance, 
the first thing said of them was that "they had 
the likeness of a man." No man ever looked 
like them; and yet there was something about 
them that seemed human. And I take this to 
mean that infinite and holy as the Lord is in 
Himself, He never forgets that we are human. 
As a Psalm puts it so wonderfully : 

"He knoweth our frame; 
He remembereth that we are but dust." 

Yes, these great creatures of might had the 
likeness of a man! And yet they had wings. 
The wings are there as a sign of uplift. 

"Rise my soul and stretch thy wings, 
Thy better portion trace; 
Rise from transitory things 
Towards heaven, thy destined place." 

So sings the Christian poet. And something 
within us says that this idea of uplift must be 
fundamental with the Divine Providence, for it 
is something which we sorely need. Wings! 
Some power of faith and love to raise us from 
the worldly and selfish levels where we too hab- 
itually dwell. "And hands as of a man under 
the wings!" Ah, there is the considerateness 
again. The poet seems to think we might just 
soar away and be as angels ; but God knows how 
human we are, and that there must be hands as 
well as wings! Hands! Such a hand aS was 



120 RELIGION AND LIFE 

stretched out to Simon Peter going down amid 
drowning depths; hands of a mother who tried 
to comfort us, when, as boys or girls, we crept 
to her with our sore hearts; hands of a wise, 
kind friend; hand of one dearer than a friend, 
laid in ours as if to say : "I understand. I still 
love you ; I trust you/' Let us bless God that in 
asking us to rise, the wings of uplift which He 
sends are wings with hands ! 

Then there is this strange representation : four 
faces : — the face of a man, the face of a lion, the 
face of an ox, the face of an eagle ! Is the Lord 
picturing out to us a fourfold need of our nature 
to which He pledges the aid of His Providence? 

i. Amid the stress of our earthly life, do we in- 
wardly cherish a wish that we might grow up to 
be the kind of man God wishes us to be? Do 
we sometimes feel our moral failures so deeply 
that we groan within ourselves : "I am a worm 
and no man?" And is it true that no matter how 
miserably we may fail, there is a power of infi- 
nite lovingkindness and wisdom that inspires the 
thought within us: "Be a man! Be your best, 
your truest self!" Infinite love once shone in 
the face of One who always spoke of Himself 
as the Son of Man. And it is written that "to 
as many as believed in Him to them gave He the 
power to become the children of God." Is that 
spirit of infinite love that sought to awaken a 
desire to be a live, a spiritual man in the Lord's 
sight — is that gone from us? 



THE HELP OF THE CHERUBIM 121 

2. And yet notwithstanding the highest ideals 
and the best of intentions, are there not times 
when we grow faint-hearted ? Courage goes : — 
God knows why. The high resolve, the spirit that 
said: "What foe have I to fear?" a something 
within us, which, in a brave moment, cried: "I 
will fear no evil; come what may I will be 
honest; I will be charitable; I will be pure" — 
all that (God pity us!) sometimes comes to a 
dismal end. Something thwarts us; something 
wounds us ; and lo, we are weak and timid again. 
Does Providence understand these moods ? And 
is the power which once kept saying to us : "Fear 
not!" "Let not your heart be troubled; neither 
let it be afraid !" — is that still trying to rouse us 
when we are weak? The face as of a lion! 

3. To all of us, too, there come times of dis- 
couragement in our work. Doing our best (as 
we think), we seem to accomplish so little ! Some- 
times we evidently blunder. Sometimes we feel 
that our efforts are not understood. Or perhaps 
there comes a time when the most honest thing 
for us to say is : "I am tired of working so 
hard. The work has become drudgery. It has 
lost its zest. So many around me live easy lives ! 
No yoke of necessary toil seems to be laid upon 
their smooth necks. Why must I plod on as if 
I were no more than an ox drawing a load ?" If 
that sense of dissatisfaction with our work comes 
over us, may the spirit of Him, who was heard 
to say: "I must work the works of Him that 



122 RELIGION AND LIFE 

sent Me while it is day/' rouse us from this form 
of dissatisfaction! And remembering that He, 
the Son of Man, offered Himself as our yoke- 
fellow, saying: "Take My yoke upon you," let 
us be sure that the Lord Himself is expressing 
the divine interest and care for us in work, when 
we read of the cherubim that in addition to the 
face of a man and of a lion, they also had the 
face of an ox. 

4. There is another power which we try to 
exercise : The power of thought. The dullest 
man tries to think. It may well be that we some- 
times wish that our power to think were greater 
than it is, especially about high themes. Men 
are forced to think, and think intently, of that 
which concerns them in their daily work. But 
why is it that it requires such a mental effort to 
think of spiritual things? A man can study out 
the details of his business; or he can study the 
stock market; or pore over his Sunday paper 
without a feeling of fatigue : but why would he 
think it an unreasonable proposition to sit down 
to-day and read through the book of Isaiah, or 
the Gospel according to John, either one of 
which are not only shorter, but transcendently 
better than the mass of things he will perhaps 
read over before the day is done? Are many of 
us deficient here? Do we find that sustained 
power of thought in spiritual things is difficult? 
And yet it would be such a helpful power to have 
and to use! The eagle circles upward towards 



THE HELP OF THE CHERUBIM 123 

the sun with a strength of wing and a power 
of vision that excite our admiration. To have 
"the eye of an eagle" is to have an eye that is not 
blinded by the light. Has God seized upon this 
fact in nature to express to us the wish that we 
might exercise more than we do this God-given 
capacity to look to Him and think high thoughts ? 
And is it not because this is an essential part 
of any true man's life, and that the Divine Provi- 
dence is constantly endeavoring to encourage it 
and protect it that one of the faces of the Cheru- 
bim should be the face of an eagle? 

Consider, then, what these symbol-figures are 
trying to say to us: The Providence of God, 
with all the resourcefulness of which it is capa- 
ble, seeks to preserve our spiritual nature. In 
doing this it exercises the most watchful care 
over that deepest part of us which we ought to 
think of as our essential manhood; it seeks to 
inspire us with a feeling of high courage; it 
cares for us continually in our work; and it en- 
courages our mental faculties to think high 
thoughts. All this infinite care over our finite 
natures it expresses by the ceaseless watch of 
mighty cherubim with their great wings, and 
with faces as of a man, a lion, an ox, and an 
eagle. And for our further enlightenment it is 
said of these fourfold beings, that their wings 
were joined together, and that when they moved 
they went straight forward. In other words, in 
the Divine Providence there are no divided pur- 



124 RELIGION AND LIFE 

poses. The good of the entire man is sought 
simultaneously; — his spiritual manhood, his 
moral force, his capacity for service, and his 
power to think. And the purpose of the Divine 
Providence is straightforward. "They turned 
not when they went." There was no confusion ; 
no encroachment upon each other's interests. By 
a divine impulse they moved in one direction. 
"They went every one of them straight for- 
ward." At heart we all admire the man who is 
straightforward : who sees a thing to do and then 
with settled purpose and a mind that holds true, 
goes straight for the mark. How true this must 
be of the Lord in His Divine Providence over 
every one of us! Well will it be for us if from 
the heart we can pray: 

"Make Thy way straight before my face." 



2i.— THE CROWN OF PRIDE. 

"Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, 
and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty which is 
on the head of the fat valley of them that are overcome 
with wine!" — Isaiah xxviiiri. 

Ephraim is the Bible representative of our 
self-intelligence. It ought not to be necessary 
to try to prove this. It speaks for itself. The 
proud self-confident words; the crown on this 
prince's head; his boasts of wisdom, besides many 
other considerations w T hich might be urged — all 
these things combine to set Ephraim before us 
as the Bible symbol of our self -intelligence, — - 
especially in its confidence and pride. 

How true and how graphic the picture is! 
What a romance, we might say, and what a 
tenderness, surround the early development of 
our intelligence ! How much it must mean to the 
Creator of our lives to see this power coming 
forth! How essential it is to any truly human 
life! How mysteriously it emerges! How won- 
derful and gentle are the ways which God pro- 
vides for its development! How this principle 
of intelligence, as it first comes forth, stumbles! 
How it has to be taught to walk! What odd 
mistakes it makes ! How it has to be picked up, 

125 



126 RELIGION AND LIFE 

and "set straight/' as we say ! "I taught Ephraim 
to walk." There is a whole sermon in that 
brief sentence. And God has put such a spirit of 
love into it, and into the picture which He in- 
spired the prophet to draw! "I drew him with 
cords of a man, with bands of love." Every 
possible encouragement is given to the develop- 
ment of this truly human faculty. What child, 
what youth, what parent even thinks of this as 
this power of intelligence increases, and begins 
to take such a leading place in life? And then, 
almost as surely as life itself, comes the period 
when this faculty begins to work "against the 
collar;" when it begins to chafe and fret against 
instruction and authority ; when it wants to think 
things out for itself and in its own way; when 
it undertakes to solve impossible problems by its 
own limited power! "I was to them as they 
that lift up the yoke on their jaws; and I laid 
food before them!" The words call up the pic- 
ture of a kind driver doing the best he can for 
the young, untrained cattle he is driving; trying 
to quiet them in their impetuous struggle, pat- 
ting their mouths, lay food before them. And 
then, alas, these other scenes : the prince wear- 
ing a crown of pride; his head reeling with 
strong drink ; mocking the messengers of the very 
God who made his training and his growth pos- 
sible; laughing at His message of infinite love as 
mere baby-talk! 

Oh, how one sees this romance and tragedy of 



THE CROWN OF PRIDE 127 

the uprising of man's intelligence, again and 
again! The proud self-confident understanding 
that has lost all appreciation of the infinite power 
that made it possible for it to be itself; that 
cheered it on through its school-day struggle to 
grow; that provided it with ministries of gentle- 
ness ; that set such food before it ! And yet here 
it is, "feeding on wind" ; making parents and oth- 
ers tremble with the vehemence of its assertive- 
ness; its head reeling with pride in its supposed 
wisdom ! 

Pride ! pride ! this pride of intelligence ! What 
a sorcerer it is when it gets into our lives ! And 
it is so sure to try to do so; so likely to do so! 
And it has so many ways of expressing itself! 
Pride of what we have; pride of what we do; 
pride of station; pride of some gift of mind or 
grace of character. But the pride which is the 
most likely to rise up and lay hands on us, the 
pride of which Ephraim is the especial type, is 
this pride of intelligence : to feel that you know; 
that you have looked thoroughly into a thing 
and understand it; that while others may be 
conventional and narrow, you at least are broad ; 
while others may be shallow, you are deep ; while 
others may be satisfied with surface knowledge, 
you look far down below the surface! Pride! 
One may be so proud of his opinions, that the 
opinions of others seem of little account. It is 
hard to treat them with respect. 

This kind of pride may be just as true of spirit- 



128 RELIGION AND LIFE 

ual as of natural beliefs. One's soul may be 
drunk with pride of spiritual intelligence. The 
man who has an intellectual faith in God and be- 
lieves the articles of his creed, is not necessarily 
a modest or a teachable man. He may boast to 
himself, if not to others, that he can interpret all 
mysteries, and that his understanding of spiritual 
truth is not to be questioned. If any one doubts 
the power of intellectual pride, let him reflect how 
hard it is to give up or modify an opinion once 
formed ; how more than hard it is, sometimes, to 
say simply and without excuses — or even to say 
it at all, — "I am mistaken. My intelligence was 
faulty. I looked at this matter in a wrong way." 
We find it hard because we take such pride in 
that princely faculty of knowing. And another 
sign of our pride is the difficulty we experience 
in doing full justice to the opinions of others. 
We belittle their intelligence. We set them 
down as of slight account. 

When a man has this pride of intelligence 
there is little that God or man can teach him. 
When he flatters himself until he becomes wise 
and prudent in his own eyes, the very truth he 
imbibes mounts to his head, and he babbles about 
it as if it were his own and as if he alone under- 
stood it. It is also as a Psalm puts it : "Pride 
compasseth him about as a chain." It binds him. 
It holds him tight. It prevents him from ad- 
vancing. There are many evils of life which 
seem far more grievous; but it is doubtful if 



THE CROWN OF PRIDE 129 

anything holds us back much more surely and 
more fatally than this intellectual pride; for it 
renders us so unteachable. It takes away utterly 
the child-spirit, which, our Lord said, is essen- 
tial. 

Is it not beautiful to see that notwithstanding 
this sin of pride is pictured out so strongly in 
the figure of Ephraim, the Bible represents him 
in the end as redeemed and established in a life 
of true honor? After hard discipline the princely 
mind has been won at last. It has put off its 
pride. It has thrown away the silver images 
with the cry : "What have I to do with idols 
any more?" It has been touched and softened 
by the realization of the lovingkindness of God. 
He knows what God means when He says to 
him : "I am like a green fir tree ; from Me is 
the fruit found." He means that all true growth 
and prosperity are from Him, and that He is 
the ever-flourishing source of all life and wis- 
dom. And with the passing of pride, the Word, 
in a succession of beautiful figures expresses the 
joy of God. "I will be as the dew," the Lord is 
represented as saying over this redeemed youth, 
this chastened faculty. "He shall blossom as 
the lily ; he shall shoot down great roots like the 
rugged foundations of the mountains of Leba- 
non; his branches shall spread; his beauty shall 
be as the olive tree ; his smell shall be as Lebanon" 
— the smell of clear mountain air, as another has 
said, "with the scent of the pines upon it." 



i 3 o RELIGION AND LIFE 

With such figures of nature, God pictures out 
the strength and the beauty of the intelligence 
when it has put away its pride and come into a 
spirit of true reasonableness. The dew, the 
mountain breeze, the vine, the lilies, the pines, — 
"sacraments of the open air," as they have been 
called. And these are the blessings promised : 
"life and health, fragrance and fruitfulness, be- 
neath the shadow and the clew of His Presence/ ' 



22.— ETERNAL YOUTH. 

"Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the 
young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait for Je- 
hovah shall renew their strength; they shall mount up 
with wings liks eagles; they shall run and not be weary; 
they shall walk and not faint." — Isaiah xl 130-31. 

We do not seek to grow old. We should be 
disquieted if we were told that God's purpose 
in our creation was to have us grow old, and 
then to keep us in a state of old age forever. 
One of the most beautiful Psalms in bidding 
our souls bless the Lord, gives this as one rea- 
son for being glad in Him : 

"Who satisfieth thy desires with good things, 
So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle." 

It calls up to old age a period of life which 
has gone, and of which it doubtless often dreams, 
and it says in effect : "The God in whom your 
soul trusts, and whom you have tried to follow; 
the God who has brought you through the three- 
score and ten and even more years of earthly 
life, and who is sanctifying your old age; He 
shall do a wonderful thing : — your strength 
-which has been failing shall be renewed, and 
you shall come back into a state of youth; not 

131 



132 RELIGION AND LIFE 

the old youth of inexperience and oftentimes of 
self-confidence and folly; but youth, with its 
freshness, its quickness, its hopefulness of spirit, 
and your life shall seem to be in the very spring- 
time of its power." 

Our first youth is given to us : this second 
youth has to be earned. It comes as the result 
of character. It comes as the spring comes : 
through "the right mingling of the light and 
heat of the sun, which gently warms our world, 
fills it with a germinating power, and causes it 
to be alive, and break forth into beauty and pro- 
ductiveness ;" — the annually recurring symbol of 
the mingling of truth and love, which brings to 
the soul something of the sunshine of heaven, 
and thrills it with a sense of gladness and of 
power. 

The first youth, natural in its quality and un- 
earned, passes away : the second youth, spiritual 
in its quality and earned, remains. The first 
youth is referred to in our text. With all its 
elasticity and buoyancy, with all its daring and 
its strength, it will give way at times. In our 
first youth we form many a noble resolution and 
set before ourselves many ideals which are not 
fulfilled. Indeed, we often feel that we have 
miserably failed in actualizing the high desires 
of our hearts; and some pass into manhood or 
womanhood disillusioned, as they think, feeling 
almost bitterly that they have dreamed an im- 
possible dream. "Even the youths shall faint 



ETERNAL YOUTH 133 

and be weary; and the young men shall utterly 
fall." 

The reason is not far to seek. In youthful 
enthusiasm we expect to realize our ideals 
through our own strength. Our enthusiasm may 
not be unworthy in its aims; but we look to self. 
This is not through deliberate evil. It is nat- 
ural that we should do so. And it is also natural 
that this should fail. For no man is able of him- 
self to live up to his ideal best. Therefore the 
inspired words of the prophet in our text go on 
to say : "But they that wait upon the Lord shall 
renew their strength." To wait upon Him means 
to learn to depend upon Him ; to make Him a 
partner in our struggles ; to come to feel that He 
is necessary if we would succeed. Is it neces- 
sary to say that this is a state of life which it 
often takes years — years filled with all manner 
of experiences — to bring about? There are 
times when it seems to be real to us; and then 
the first thing we know we are back to the old 
youthful way of depending upon ourselves. 

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew 
their strength." What could be more beautiful 
or reassuring than the teaching of the Church 
that all who attain to a heavenly character "con- 
tinually advance into the springtime of their 
life?" This tells so much! The old do not re- 
main old. Neither are they suddenly transformed 
into inexperienced youths. That would seem al- 
most like a defeat of character. But this is what 



134 RELIGION AND LIFE 

takes place : — gradually, naturally, just as our 
first youth was given, the angel-man or woman 
advances towards the springtide of life. More 
and more surely one comes into a state of fresh- 
ness, of joyous enthusiasm, and of power. 

"To grow old in heaven is to grow young!' 
How wonderful that must be ! How wonderful 
it must be to find that life, instead of growing 
away from a state of youth is ever advancing to- 
wards it; and that the freshness, the joy of spirit, 
the will to do, and the power to achieve keep 
increasing, and become more and more filled 
with a spirit of wisdom and of love which brings 
them to their best ! And to know that this is the 
order, the natural course of life in heaven; and 
that everything there, because it is animated by 
the life-giving spirit of God, goes on advancing 
from strength to strength! For the life of God, 
from which the souls of angels freely and con- 
sciously live, is not a diminishing life. "Hast thou 
not known ? hast thou not heard ? The everlasting 
God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the 
earth, fainteth not, neither is weary. . . He 
giveth power to the faint : and to him that hath 
no might He increaseth strength. Even the 
youths shall faint and be weary, and the young 
men shall utterly fall : but they that wait for the 
Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount 
up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not 
be weary; they shall walk and not faint." 



ETERNAL YOUTH 135 

Note the strength of the figures employed to 
set forth to us this eternal youth : 

"They shall mount up with wings as eagles; 
They shall run and not be weary; 
They shall walk and not faint." 

Soaring, running, walking. First, the great 
upward reach of the intelligence to gain the 
highest view, to see what is the truest way, the 
highest duty. Then the mighty rush of feeling, 
the eager desire to do the right thing, to convey 
the truth or the good : — that is the running. And 
then the steady, settled, unwearying carrying out 
of dream and rapture into the actualities of life : 
that is walking. From dream to duty: the 
great up-soaring of faith, the quick rush of de- 
sire, and then the sure and faithful fulfilment 
in helpful deeds of daily life. How often it 
happens in our present life that the up-springing 
of the intelligence is fitful; the good impulses of 
our hearts are short-lived, and we lose them 
as we come back to the commonplaces of 
daily living. But how different it shall be in 
the heavenly world for all who have quali- 
fied themselves for it by righteous living! Eter- 
nal youth! The freshness, the strength, the cre- 
ativeness of spring! Believing, loving, doing; 
without weariness, with unfailing joy! Blessed 
hope ! 

"They shall mount up with wings as eagles; 
They shall run and not be weary; 
They shall walk and not faint. ,, 



23-— THAT DREAMER! 

"And they said one to another: Behold that dreamer 
cometh!" — Gen. xxxvii:i9. 

A youth of seventeen, wandering over the plain 
of Dothan. Ostensibly he is in search of his 
brothers. For days he has roamed over the 
hills maintaining his quest. But essentially he 
is a dreamer. He cannot limit his thoughts to 
flocks and pasture lands like his brothers. Who 
knows but that the lad tried hard to be a faith- 
ful shepherd; watched patiently over his dumb 
charges: tried, too, to be companionable with 
his kinsmen? But the boy was a "dreamer." 
Strange thoughts, we may believe, swept across 
his mind. Strange emotions filled his soul. 
Visions, presentiments, dreams seemed to open 
the gates of another life and bid him enter. A 
Kingdom not from hence, regions of power far 
above out of ordinary sight, far-off influences, 
sources of beauty — these, it would seem, were the 
things that stirred the sensitive spirit of the 
youth as he tramped the hills searching for his 
brethren and their flocks. A dreamer! sneered 
at by his kinsmen, admonished by his indulgent 

136 



THAT DREAMER! 137 

father when he told of the dream, wherein sun, 
moon and stars made their obeisance to him; 
understood by none; his life a mystery to him- 
self; drawn as by voices and beckoning hands to 
something more imperious than sheep-cotes and 
markets. 

"Behold, that dreamer cometh! this fellow no 
better than we ; issuing from the same home, yet 
not satisfied to live as we are living; daring to 
tell us that he saw himself as a tall, upright 
sheaf, around which we as lesser sheaves bowed 
ourselves to the ground !" "That dreamer !" and 
moments, aye, hours of intense loneliness must 
come to every true dreamer as he realizes that 
thoughts and aspirations and capabilities of life 
which seem so real, so desirable, so commanding 
are but fantastic and of no account to those who 
only seem to know and care for a man in his 
outer, ordinary self, but whom he would gladly 
claim in the deeper fellowship of the spirit ! Oh, 
Dreamers! with, it may be, a painful sense of 
your imperfections, your inconsistencies, your 
small achievements, yet dimly seeing, and in- 
wardly acknowledging, and daily groping to- 
wards a light that gives new meaning, lends new 
beauty, calls out a new feeling towards duties, 
possessions, fellow-men — what chance have you 
in this work-a-day world, where the struggle for 
existence goes on without ceasing, and men 
shoulder each other out of the way, and the ques- 
tions which the multitudes ask day after day 



138 RELIGION AND LIFE 

are "What shall we eat, and what shall we 
drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" 

There come times when material interests are 
so strong, or necessities so pressing, that it seems 
little short of folly or impertinence to think or 
speak of anything which is not immediately re- 
lated to them. There are times, when, facing 
some perplexity or need, the presence of the 
dreamer, — this embodiment of thoughts, and mo- 
tives and hopes which we know by the name of 
"Religion/' — is only an aggravation to aching 
brains and tired bodies. Dreamers? There are 
times when spiritual sentiments seem only to 
serve as an added irritation to tortured nerves, 
and one is ready to cry, "Give me a religion, 
which, without talking about God or Heaven, 
without prayers or creeds, can just help me re- 
move this obstacle in my path, solve this prob- 
lem, do this work, bring me out of this trouble. " 
There are times, when, intent upon some project, 
we rush up to the Saviour of the world, and in- 
stead of praying, "Lord, help me be rid of my 
selfishness and pride, and to do my work with 
clean hands and a pure heart ;" we cry with the 
man of old, "Master, speak to my brother that 
he divide the inheritance with me!" And the 
pity of it is that we are so intent upon that one 
thing, that we do not even try to understand the 
divine reason which is in His answer : "Man, 
who made Me a judge or a divider over you?" 

What, then, am I doing? Am I simply rang- 



THAT DREAMER! 139 

ing myself with the sons of Jacob, who, vexed 
at heart, expressed their thought of the useless- 
ness of the beautiful, guileless, mystical spirit of. 
their younger brother as they said one to another, 
"Behold, that dreamer cometh!" 

Follow this "dreamer's" life; and in doing so, 
believe that the spirit of divine wisdom, which 
caused his career to be traced on the pages of His 
holy Word, did so with a purpose, and that they 
who will read between the lines may learn what 
dreamers may do. He stands, this Joseph, for 
that spirit, that temper, that embodiment of life 
which in one word we call "spiritual ;" that which 
"deals with the spirits and souls of things, and 
lives for them" — their secret causes, their mo- 
tives, their meaning. It is a spiritual rationality. 
To some men this appears utterly visionary. 
They cast it from them as something for which 
they have little use. They thrust it into ob- 
scurity. They lower it into a pit. But notice 
that this same Joseph, who was thrown aside, 
and sold, and carried down into Egypt as a kind 
of curious merchandise, and there thrown into 
prison because he would not yield to the wiles of 
Potiphar's wife — this Joseph, mocked, wronged, 
put in chains, had a wonderful mission. Out- 
wardly humiliated, he had an insight into the 
meaning of things. He became known as an 
"interpreter" — one among a thousand. He had 
a way of dealing with the spirits and souls of 
things, and living for them. And this gave him 



i 4 o RELIGION AND LIFE 

power. It made him a unique figure. It opened 
up a strange and beautiful career for him. For 
what did Pharaoh, king of Egypt, do when 
warned of an on-coming famine, but take this 
dreamer, put a golden chain about his neck, cause 
him to ride in his chariot, make him governor of 
the land, in the hope that somehow he would be 
able to meet this famine of bread that was com- 
ing upon them ? 

And what is this but a graphic way of bidding 
us know that "the spiritual" has its mission — a 
wonderful mission of interpretation and of pres- 
ervation — which sooner or later the world itself 
(of which Egypt is such a true type) comes to 
recognize? What is the deeper meaning of Jo- 
seph's being made governor, but that the world, 
feeling its inability to meet the moral famine 
which threatens its existence, is impelled at length 
to turn to this deeper principle — "the spiritual," 
which deals with the souls of things and lives 
for them — hoping in its heart that in some way 
it will preserve what is good ? And what means 
this laying up of corn with which the famine 
may be met, but the careful husbanding on the 
part of religion of all the spiritual truth and 
good which it can get together, and preserve as 
a much-needed store for keeping the world alive ? 

How full of spiritual suggestion for these 
times is this elevation of Joseph in Egypt by the 
King's command ! For it means that the natural 
man, enlightened by reason, realizes sooner or 



THAT DREAMER! 141 

later that he cannot save his own world from 
threatened moral impoverishment. He can, if 
he will, make use of natural forces : — public 
schools, boards of health, the police, jails, alms- 
houses, hospitals, parks, museums. He can make 
laws. He can say, "Thou shalt not!" to every 
evil thing that shows its head. And yet he can- 
not, by any or all of these means, save his land 
of Egypt. He cannot cope with the famine. 
He cannot prevent evil from spreading, and even- 
tually desolating his world. It has been tried 
again and again. Babylon tried it ; Athens tried 
it; Rome tried it. They came to their end as 
surely as did Sodom and Gomorrha. And the 
reason is that the natural man is governed by 
natural considerations, and these have not the 
power to penetrate to the region of higher mo- 
tives, which alone are adequate to call forth the 
consecration and self-denial necessary to the true 
well-being and preservation of Society. 

And so it comes to pass that the Divine Provi- 
dence makes wonderful use of "the dreamer;" 
and that what to many seems so visionary and 
powerless — "the spiritual" — is after all the 
power, which, more than any other, works for 
the preservation of all that is true and good in 
the world. This spirit it is the high function of 
Religion, by every means within its power, to 
encourage and cultivate. And for its inspira- 
tion and faith there is the remembrance of Him 
to whom unselfishness, purity, patience, service- 



142 RELIGION AND LIFE 

ableness, sacrifice were something more than 
dreams. In Him they found their complete ex- 
pression and their power; and they have been a 
means of grace to millions who have believed in 
Him, and who have tried to follow in His steps. 
And as long as there is a religion that believes in 
Him with all its mind and heart, and is faithful 
in its witness of Him, so long the world shall 
have preserved for its true nourishment the 
Bread of life which will satisfy the deepest needs 
of all "who hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness/' 



24.— THE HOUSE OF FRAGRANCE. 

''And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment." 
— John xii:3. 

An act of deep, unaffected devotion filled a 
house with fragrance. Without calculation or 
studied art, this act of Mary went in advance 
of present needs— as true love often does — and 
set itself "beforehand" (as the Lord pointed out) 
to do its humble best to be a help and comfort. 
One of the Marys of the gospels took a pound 
of the most costly ointment at her command, and 
with it she ^anointed the feet of the Saviour, 
wiping them with the hairs of her head as He 
reclined at meat in a house in Bethany. Silently, 
we may believe, this act of love was done; no 
request on His part, no appeal for permission on 
hers; the men busy with their eating, or fol- 
lowing some conversation. And then a fra- 
grance spread throughout the room; floated to 
every part of the house. We may fancy the 
guests as looking up to see whence it was; and 
then they found that almost literally it was the 
fragrance of an act of love. 

Mary showed her feeling for the Lord in a 
way that was wholly personal. Apparently there 

J 43 



144 RELIGION AND LIFE 

was no thought in it of advancing His cause; 
although she doubtless would have been ready to 
do that if the Lord had called upon her for any 
service she could render. He was there! He to 
whom her soul went forth in gratitude for spir- 
itual help given; He to whom she looked in 
faith as to none other : — He was there ! with that 
strange, divinely-human presence; the perfect 
embodiment in her eyes of all that she knew, or 
could hope to know, of wisdom, or goodness, or 
power, or Divine Life Itself. She had seen deeds 
of miracle and mercy done by His hands. His 
teachings had opened up ways of wisdom and of 
duty which He alone had enabled her to see. 
And He was there! in that little house; in the 
midst of that humble company; eating His bread 
with them ! He, perfect in holiness and power : 
and she, only a woman, with so little apparently 
within her power to do for Him! His cause 
was great. What could hands like hers do for 
its advancement? She had heard Him say that 
the field where He was sowing was the world. 
How could she enter into such mighty labors? 
A little while before she had heard Him speak 
those momentous words : "I am the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life;" and had stood by when He 
called Lazarus forth from his four days' sleep in 
the tomb. What could a woman do to help a 
power so divine? There was love; there was 
faith ; there was reverence. These she felt within 
her soul. These she could express in her wo- 



THE HOUSE OF FRAGRANCE 145 

man's way. The costliest ointment she could 
find should be poured upon His feet. He would 
know at least that she revered Him. And she 
took her "ointment of spikenard, very costly ;" 
and kneeling down she poured it forth. And lo, 
"the house was filled with the odor of the oint- 
ment." The men looked up, and began to ask 
each other : "Is not this unnecessary? Is it not 
wasteful? Will He, who has taught us that love 
for Him should express itself in service to the 
needy, wish that so much personal devotion 
should be bestowed upon Him?" Then the voice 
of Judas was heard to break out sharply : "Why 
was not this ointment sold for three hundred 
pence, and given to the poor?" And if ever a 
man had reason to believe that his plea for 
charity, however shallow, would reach a sym- 
pathetic ear, it was Judas. And the strange part 
of it is, that the Lord did not support the remon- 
strance of His disciples. He shielded Mary from 
their criticisms, as she knelt at His feet, and 
said to them : "Let her alone ; she hath wrought 
a good work upon Me." He sustained her in 
what she had done. Her act of devotion should 
live. "And the house was filled with the odor 
of the ointment." 

From this may we not draw the simple lesson 
that personal devotion for our Lord is a pre- 
cious thing in any one's life? It certainly is a 
part, an essential part of the Lord's own teaching. 
It is good, it seems to me, to have one instance 



146 RELIGION AND LIFE 

in which the Lord not only defended, but praised 
personal devotion to Him. Something infinitely 
precious is imparted to the person, who, from his 
soul, reverences the life and person of Jesus 
Christ. Christian experience bears witness to 
this fact. What we take into our minds, and 
think of, and love, that forms us into what we 
are. What can we take into our minds that is 
as precious as love for the Lord Jesus? 

We may well suspect the motive in ourselves 
that would question the usefulness of making 
Him the object of personal devotion, or that 
would prevent us from rendering Him the com- 
pletest homage of which our soul is capable; 
learning about Him, meditating upon His life, 
trying to set ourselves in the way of His steps. 
Mary took the costliest ointment that she could 
find; she poured it out upon His feet; and He 
who knew the love which was trying to express 
itself in this act of devotion, knew how precious 
was that element, and commended and blessed 
her for what she did. "And the house was filled 
with the odor of the ointment. " 

The same should be true in our Churches. We 
are apt to think of attendance upon Church ser- 
vices from the standpoint of what we hope to 
receive — not in a selfish way, necessarily. We 
feel the general need of spiritual instruction, of 
directing our thoughts and our .desires towards 
heavenly things. We feel the need of comfort 
in some disappointment, or sorrow, or trial we 



THE HOUSE OF FRAGRANCE 147 

are trying to bear; or of inward strength with 
which to meet the temptations, the duties, and 
the responsibilities that are ours. And thinking 
of our needs, we naturally wonder whether we 
shall find the help we crave. Will the services, 
will the music, will the preaching be what we 
desire? If we take the time and the pains to go 
to Church, shall we be repaid ? 

It is perfectly natural that we should view the 
matter so. But that is it : it is a natural way of 
looking at it, and not a spiritual way. When once 
we begin to look at it in that way, we come to 
the services in a critical spirit, wondering why 
this is done, or that said, or that sung. Or, 
quite as likely, if we are judging wholly of our 
needs and what we may receive, we may not go 
at all; persuading ourselves that there are other 
ways in which we may be refreshed, that would 
do our tired bodies and jaded spirits good. 

But there is another point of view. Suppose 
we feel that there is something that we can give. 
Suppose we feel that it is good to give thanks 
unto the Lord ; to give expression to the love for 
Him, and for His Word, and for His Church 
which we are trying to cherish in our hearts. 
No one comes in that spirit and with that inten- 
tion without becoming a contributor. He brings 
the costliest thing he has. He brings that which 
is "without money and without price." Let a 
body of people come together so ; each one intent 
on expressing the love of his and of her heart for 



148 RELIGION AND LIFE 

the Saviour of men, and what must be the result? 
"The house was filled with the odor of the oint- 
ment/' It must be good, it must be worthy, to 
worship with our brethren so. It must be deeply 
helpful to carry away in our souls the fragrance 
of a house filled with the spirit of love for Jesus 
Christ. 



25.— THE SACRAMENT OF PEACE. 

"And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread 
and wine; and he was priest of God most high." — Gen. 
xiv:i8. 

An incident in the life of Abram. He had 
rescued Lot, his brother's son, who had been car- 
ried off captive by king Chedorlaomer and his 
confederates. It had been a hard fight. Abram 
and his men were returning to their home in 
Hebron. They had reached Salem, the city of 
peace, — for that is what "Salem" means — when 
lo, a royal figure, coming forth to greet them 
with bread and wine in his hands! We know 
nothing about Melchizedek beyond this single act 
of his. But it was so expressive that the name 
of the king of Salem has lived; and centuries 
afterwards it appeared in a Psalm to which our 
Lord referred in token of His Messiahship: 
"Thou art a priest forever after the order of 
Melchizedek." 

This, then, is the subject for our contempla- 
tion : the Priest and King of the City of Peace 
coming forth and feeding a man returning vic- 
toriously from battle with elements which long 
afterwards were selected for a sacrament by 
Him who said: "Peace I leave with you; My 

149 



ISO RELIGION AND LIFE 

peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, 
give I unto you." 

We may think of peace, then, as a sacrament ; 
and, appealing to the incident before us, we may 
think of this sacrament as being for the spiritual 
fighter. The spiritual parallel is quite obvious. 
Abram is the man of God. He is called of God, 
set apart to be God's faithful witness, and to be a 
blessing in the earth. He is the spiritual man; 
or, let us say, the spiritual part of man's nature, 
dwelling among the high places of the land to 
which the Lord has called it. Lot is the man 
of the world. He chooses the low, fertile plain 
near the Dead Sea. He edges nearer and nearer 
to Sodom and Gomorrha, and presently he is 
drawn into the life of those cities. He stands for 
the world-side of our nature, the lower part of it; 
related to Abram, but pursuing a very different 
life from his kinsman up there in the high places 
of the Holy Land. Then comes this incident : 
Lot is made captive; he is carried away; Abram 
gathers his little band together, pursues the en- 
emy, defeats it, rescues Lot, brings him home 
again. It is the natural mind overcome by the 
forces of heredity and of a life of worldly in- 
dulgence; "carried away," as we so often actu- 
ally say, by evil ; but rescued by the higher forces 
which look upon this moral defeat of the lower 
nature with concern, and struggle bravely for its 
release. 

This spiritual victory is followed by a state 



THE SACRAMENT OF PEACE 151 

of peace. Can we understand what the nature 
of this peace is? So many of the descriptions 
of blissful states of the soul seem to be mere 
words, rarely if ever realized by those who make 
them, and not having any real power of appeal 
over normal and healthy minds. We do harm 
if we make heavenly conditions of life seem un- 
real. Men turn away; they lose faith in religion, 
and they suspect those who talk about these 
things as being either weak or insincere. This 
seems to me to be true of many of the attempts to 
describe the state of heavenly bliss which is 
called Peace. And yet we are assured that there 
is "a peace which the world cannot give," and 
w T hich is something that any most earnest man 
might well long for and strive to attain. Con- 
sider how much is involved in this declaration 
of an illumined and close spiritual observer : 

"Peace in the heavens is like the spring in the world, 
which delights all things/'* 

Peace like the spring! Not the time when 
everything is dying down and being hushed to 
rest, but when all things are awakening; when 
the creative forces are astir; when everything is 
coming to its best. A time of joy! A time of 
strength! when things which had seemed dead 
are coming to life again ! Is the peace of 
heaven, the promised peace of God to faithful 
men really like that ? Spring ! spring ! 
* Swedenborg. 



152 RELIGION AND LIFE 

. . . "The high tide of the year, 

When whatever of life hath ebbed away, 

Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer, 
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay. 

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 

We are happy now because God so wills it ; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; 

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell. 

We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing. 

Sfe 5k 3fe 5k 3$C 5k 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; 
Everything is happy now, 

Everything is upward striving; 
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 

'Tis the natural way of living."* 

Ah, poet, singing your song of days in June, 
did your soul guess the real parable of the spring- 
time? Did you know that the peaceful strength 
of this great awakening in nature, which stirs us 
every year, tells us of the highest condition of 
life possible to men and angels? And yet can 
we not see the truth of it? Peace comes when 
the celestial and spiritual things in our higher na- 
ture — heavenly truths we have been taught, 
ideals that have been formed, affections for good 
we have tried to cherish — when these begin 
actually to live; when the life of God which 
is the love of God, has won its way so fully in 
the soul that good and truth, which had been 
lying more or less dormant, became permeated by 

*J. R. Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal. 



THE SACRAMENT OF PEACE 153 

this new state of life, and start up, and begin to 
be what they should be. Then the soul feels a 
joyous strength; a sense of completeness and 
satisfaction. The inmosts of all things in a man, 
far removed from present consciousness, take on 
life. The spiritual nature fills out, as it were. 
Everything in it begins to pulse with a strange 
joy. Fears are removed; there is no solicitude 
about the future ; the old bristling self-confidence 
passes away; there is a delight of heart, a cheer- 
fulness of mind, and everything of good becomes 
inmostly affected with a feeling of bliss. 

All this is due to a change which takes place 
in the spiritual organism. It is the opening up 
of the spiritual mind; and this can only take 
place after long and victorious struggle in the 
lower mind. For a long time the lower con- 
tends with the higher ; will not submit to it ; tries 
to master it. And while this is going on (like 
the contention between Lot's herdsmen and 
Abram's herdsmen) no peace is possible. The 
higher mind remains closed lest it should be in- 
vaded and despoiled by the evils and falsities of 
the lower. In this condition there is unrest. 
There does indeed appear to be contentment when 
things succeed according to one's wishes; but 
this is wholly external, and within that very con- 
tentment there may be jealousies, deceits, cupidi- 
ties which rend and assail the interiors of the 
mind. No; there mu3t be hard fighting, before 
this world-side of our nature can be brought into 



154 RELIGION AND LIFE 

its true order. For by heredity it loves the things 
of self and the world, and is in opposition to the 
spiritual mind taught to look to the Lord and 
the neighbor. And nothing can bring this lower 
mind into harmony with the higher except temp- 
tation-combats, which are often hard to bear, 
bringing a sense of discouragement and a feeling 
that we are hopelessly selfish and evil. But these 
are the means by which the selfish and worldly 
loves by which we are so often carried away, like 
poor Lot, become conquered. And when that 
has been accomplished, then, behold, the Lord 
opens the spiritual mind. Now there descends a 
power of good and of truth which fills the whole 
man with a sense of gladness. He has "fought 
the good fight." Through God he has done val- 
iantly. He is ready to eat the blessed sacra- 
ment of bread and wine brought to him by the 
King of Peace. Now he is ready for such words 
as these : "that My joy may be in you and that 
your joy may be full." For, believe it well, the 
Lord rejoices in this victory of life; and "the 
Divine joy of the Divine Love" entering into the 
soul of man affects everything with a sense of 
happiness. Then everything begins to stir with 
joyous life; and the man begins to live his life 
with a harmonious strength, with an elasticity, 
with a freshness of interest unknown before. It 
is springtime come over his little world, and set- 
ting it all astir and abloom. And this is Peace. 
And Peace is Heaven. 



26.— THE PROBLEM OF A LIFE IN- 
CLINED TO EVIL. 

"And the two angels came to Sodom at even; and Lot 
sat in the gate of Sodom; and Lot saw them, and rose up 
to meet them ; and he bowed himself with his face to the 
earth; and he said: Behold now, my lords, turn aside, I 
pray you, into your servant's house." — Gen. xix:i-2. 

We do not know very much about Lot; and 
yet he is such a typical man! He leaves Abram 
to sojourn alone in the new home in Canaan, 
which God had given them as an inheritance; 
whilst he, he gathers all his possessions together, 
his herds, his flocks, and his servants, and goes 
down to try his fortune in what seems to him 
to be the more promising region marked by 
Sodom and Gomorrha. To him this seems the 
easier way to get rich and to gain pleasure : and 
to a man of Lot's temper, the easy way is the 
desirable way. Why forego a life which prom- 
ises to gratify his natural tastes and ambitions? 
For a time evil depends more upon lures than 
upon challenges. What religion calls "the nat- 
ural life," with its ideas of what makes for 
pleasure and success, appeals to us as reasonable. 
It promises immediate results. It holds out a 

*55 



156 RELIGION AND LIFE 

freer, more popular sort of life. Presently this 
seems attractive, even if it does not yet seem 
wholly right. 

Lot looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha 
without expecting, it is safe to say, much less 
purposing, to become as the men of those evil 
cities. No doubt he felt he could take advan- 
tage of the natural opportunities which seemed 
to smile upon him, without too great a sacrifice 
of character. First he slowly drifted down the 
hills of the sacred little country to which God 
had called him, and pitched his tent, he and his 
children, quite near to the city of Sodom. There 
it was, the reckless, joyous city, within easy hail- 
ing distance. He was near enough to watch its 
every movement, to hear its music, and to feel 
the breath of its feverish life. When the story 
which we are considering opens, Lot is sitting 
in the gate. He has got as far as that. The 
first shrinking and fear have disappeared. Partly 
he holds to his former self, and partly he is will- 
ing to try new ways. He is on the edge :^— not 
the ragged edge of doubt and apprehension, but 
the rounded edge of acquiescence. His position 
suggests so forcibly that attitude of mind into 
which one may drift when one thinks in secret: 
"It is not well to be too good, too honest, too 
strict, too unselfish/' That compliant, compla- 
cent attitude is so dangerous ! From this sunny 
gateway men and women rise up, and, as they 
afterwards try to think, almost innocently and 



A LIFE INCLINED TO EVIL 157 

blamelessly issue into such entanglements and 
tragedies of sin! 

And it was here at the gate that the angels 
came to rescue Lot. "At even/' the narrative 
states, as if to suggest and emphasize the state 
of spiritual obscurity which was fast settling 
down upon his drifting life. It gets to be "even" 
when little by little — we hardly know just how 
or why — the transgressions, the new standards 
and ways do not stand out so sharply wrong as 
they did. Familiarity with them has toned them 
down to a kind of neutral grey. 

But through the deepening twilight the man 
saw other figures. They came not from Sodom, 
but from the opposite direction. And the mo- 
ment they made their presence known, he felt 
that an issue was raised. These heavenly visit- 
ants were not going to sit down contentedly with 
him in the gate. Neither were they going to 
congratulate him on his half-and-half life. Their 
coming was with decision and for judgment. 

We surely cannot be wrong if we think of these 
"angels" of the story as standing for the heav- 
enly influences which come into our lives in the 
hope — the desperate hope, sometimes — of sav- 
ing us from our poorer selves. They come so 
unexpectedly ; they come in so many ways ! We 
may think of them as the influence of veritable 
angel-presences of which a Scripture says : "He 
shall give His angels charge over thee to keep 
thee in all thy ways." Doubtless it is well not 



158 RELIGION AND LIFE 

to be actually conscious of this invisible ministry, 
lest it should blunt our sense of individual re- 
sponsibility. That, however, need not deprive 
us of the encouragement of the fact that we are 
encompassed by angelic beings who know and 
love the way of eternal life; who are conscious 
of the struggle we may be making; who do all 
within their power to strengthen our higher reso- 
lutions; and who rejoice, as our Lord affirmed, 
over every man who is struggling to turn from 
his evil ways and live. But it is good to expand 
this thought of heavenly intervention so as to 
include all those higher influences which come 
to us unawares and try to rouse our "better 
selves/' Through what numerous and various 
agencies these influences may reach us! — the 
counsel of a friend, the innocent presence of a 
child, remembered words of a good father or 
mother, the rising up of heavenly truths which 
we once believed and held as sacred. These, in 
a very real sense, are the angels about our lives. 
How unexpectedly, how mysteriously they come, 
sometimes; and with what decision! We were 
on the point of yielding to some plausible, selfish 
principle ; and then there came the flash of some 
truth from heaven which, at a stroke, revealed 
the evil to which we were inclining. We had 
been drugging our conscience with plausible ex- 
cuses. We had been saying: "I shall only be 
doing what others all around me are doing," 
when, lo, something made us aware that beneath 



A LIFE INCLINED TO EVIL 159 

all disguises or excuses the thing was wrong — 
wrong in the sight of heaven, wrong before 
God. 

When Lot recognized his angel-visitants, he 
rose up and bowed low before them. How free 
their movements were ! How peaceful was their 
strength! Let us be thankful that we, too, are 
not allowed to drift into evil ways of life with- 
out warnings and remonstrances of a similar 
kind; and let us pray that we may not lose our 
reverence for them. Then follows the account 
of a strange struggle. Lot brought the angels 
to his house. They entered in. He was glad 
to have them there. There are times, surely, 
when we are not only visited by high thoughts 
and feelings, but when we would gladly keep 
them with us. But there soon comes the chal- 
lenge from the street. The men of Sodom beat 
at Lot's door and demanded the surrender of 
his heavenly visitants. The door behind which 
we screen the angels that come into our lives is 
the door of our reason, which mediates between 
our natural and our spiritual life. The voices 
from without are voices of menace and derision. 
They cry something like this : "You will never 
succeed if you try to live the unselfish life. Your 
life will be starved small of enterprises and pleas- 
ures if you hold yourself to heavenly standards 
of conduct/' 

Lot yielded. The persistent clamor had its 
effect. He did not wish to make himself un- 



160 RELIGION AND LIFE 

popular in Sodom. He went out into the street. 
He parleyed with the crowd. He offered to 
make a base compromise. Then the angels be- 
came his rescuers. They drew him in; they 
shut the door; and the suggestive fact is re- 
corded that the men of Sodom wearied to find 
the door; for they had been smitten with blind- 
ness. 

The parallel to this? Is it really true that if 
ye stand up for what is good and true, the truth 
and the good will stand up for us, and the evils 
which had threatened us will be unable to reach 
us? We have a right to the encouragement of 
that thought, and a little experience should tell 
us that it is wonderfully true. The difficult mo- 
ments are the moments of indecision. It is not 
— or, at least, it ought not to be — an unknown 
thing to us to be occasionally affected by influ- 
ences so pure and holy that their coming is as 
the coming of angels. One does not have to be 
old, one does not have to be saintly to gain such 
experiences. With a sudden glow of feeling we 
bring these angels into our houses, and would be 
glad to have them stay. But then comes this old 
familiar clamor from without, the call to ways 
and interests into which we had drifted; which 
were lowering the tone of our life, but which 
were pressed upon us and which we were 
learning to accept without scruple. And 
here is where we parley; here is where 
we make a feeble stand. But the angels 



A LIFE INCLINED TO EVIL 161 

of the story, seeing Lot's danger, laid their 
hands upon him and drew him in, and closed 
the door. We know what it is for some evil, or 
some prejudice, or some doubt, or some anxiety 
to get hold of us. We cannot seem to get away 
from these evil persecutors. They tease, or they 
goad, or they inflame our thoughts and feelings 
and will not let us alone. The opposite to this 
is suggested by the angels drawing Lot into the 
house and closing the door. It is letting some 
truth from heaven, some righteous love, some 
principle of honor, or of charity, or of service 
lay strong hands upon us and really possess us. 
And it is true, divinely true, that whenever we 
really come under that kind of heavenly do- 
minion, evil gropes blindly for the door. We 
should have had experience enough to know that 
it is a fact that when we have once made up our 
mind to do a right thing and have been influ- 
enced by pure motives, these evils and tempta- 
tions wdiich before had well-nigh overcome us, 
seem now to grope vainly for the door. And 
is it not true that often and often difficulties 
which we had dreaded, losses and privations we 
had feared, never reached us at all? All these 
baleful fears, and threats, and sorceries, were as 
the blind groping for a door which angels had 
closed upon them. 

Blessed deliverance! Can we believe in it? 
Can we entrust ourselves to this higher care? 
The next time we are sore pressed, can we, will 



1 62 RELIGION AND LIFE 

we, yield ourselves to the influence which is try- 
ing to throw about us a power of heavenly pro- 
tection, and let it draw us away from what is 
unworthy and evil, and shut the door? 



27-— A WONDERFUL STRUGGLE. 

"And Aaron and Hur stayed up Moses' hands, the one 
on the one side, and the other on the other side." — Ex. 
xvii:i2. 

All day the battle waged. Now Israel and 
now Amalek would drive the other back. Moses 
watched the struggle with anxious eyes. From 
the hill on which he stood, he could see his peo- 
ple falter; and then he could see them charge 
again. He knew how great was the crisis. His 
hands were raised in prayer; and it seems that 
from this uplift of the mind of the great leader, 
all tense in faith and supplication, there came an 
answering tide of courage and of power from 
on high which flowed down to his struggling 
people. 

"But Moses' hands grew heavy." Oh, the 
touch of realism in the story! That element of 
fatigue, so familiar to us all ! The spirit so will- 
ing, but the drag of mortality upon those uplifted 
hands ! He could not sit there with unwearying 
strength. Like any other man, he simply grew 
tired. The hands fell slack. And lo, his peo- 
ple wavered and fell back as if they, too, were 
swept by the same wave of depression. Then it 

163 



164 RELIGION AND LIFE 

was that Aaron the priest, and Hur — a man who 
is only known to us through this one incident — 
supported him on either side ; and the hands were 
raised once more and kept steady until the going 
down of the sun. 

What does all this mean to us to-day? 

"The law was given through Moses." To the 
people who looked to him as the leader chosen of 
God to bring them to the Promised Land, he 
must have seemed like cfh embodiment of their 
faith, of their religion. They might be in trou- 
ble; they might feel the blows of enemies upon 
their shields, as they fought in the valley; but 
there upon a height was the representative of 
their faith with hands uplifted to God. 

And Amalek is so easily interpreted! The 
hater of truth and goodness; the enemy that 
steals up from behind when men are weary ; when 
something has gone wrong and there is discour- 
agement! It is that wretched, sinister, cynical 
spirit, always ready to cry down the good ; quick 
to exclaim: "Aha! aha!" whenever goodness 
fails; finding delight if it can give the truth a 
stab; counting always upon human frailty; sure 
that every man has his price; meanly exultant 
whenever the life of faith falters or breaks down. 
And there are the struggling Israelites : the peo- 
ple, or, let us say, the better elements in men's 
souls, which do believe in the truth and the 
good, but which meet with reverses, and under 
stress of trial and misfortunes, give way at times. 



A WONDERFUL STRUGGLE 165 

There is an immense amount of this contempt 
for the principles of religion from a love of evil 
at the present time; a spirit that traduces what 
many hold as sacred and dear. It points to good- 
ness as "a burden of weariness and dullness/' 
makes a comedy of heaven, and a farce of hell. 
In its love of evil, it sneers at disinterested good- 
ness as a dream; and in its stealthy, cruel way, 
it makes a thrust at men and women who are dis- 
couraged and faltering by insinuating that the 
only impulse that can always be counted upon, 
the only impulse that is truly man's, is the "devil- 
impulse" of self-interest. 

There is just one way to meet this evil state 
of irreligion; and that is by being genuinely re- 
ligious. It will not be met by being less spiritual. 
There is in every man or woman the possibility 
of spiritual life. There are moments in the life 
of nearly every one when the heart hungers for 
what is divinely good, and the mind thirsts for 
what is divinely true. The surest way to meet 
this deeper need of the spirit is to be genuinely, 
unaffectedly spiritual. The hands must be up- 
lifted. That is no idle, it is no weak gesture. It 
is not the gesture of helplessness. It is the atti- 
tude of faith; believing in the spirit of God; in- 
voking it ; making it possible for it to flow down 
and be a power to men in their struggle. "Not 
by might, nor by power ; but by My spirit, saith 
the Lord." The world is slow to believe this : 
The modern Amalekite inwardly despises it. 



166 RELIGION AND LIFE 

Nevertheless it is true. Genuine spirituality is 
and always has been the greatest power that can 
affect man's life. 

This was supremely true of our Lord. That 
one great instance of perfect love and wisdom 
actualized among men, shook the world. It 
should be true of His Church. But it must be 
a Church with uplifted hands and an upturned 
face; never unconscious of, never unmindful of 
men's humblest or their sorest needs, yet main- 
taining such an attitude of faith to God that men 
shall feel the tide of a victorious power stirring 
among them to nobler efforts. 

And how shall a Church remain steadfast in 
spiritual life? Very significant are those two 
figures upholding Moses' hands : Aaron the 
priest; Hur the layman. Aaron stands for the 
devotional element in the Church. He stands 
for the ministry of divine things among men — 
the worship, the sacraments, the cultivation of a 
spirit of reverence and of love for the things of 
God; for His Word, for His Church, for His 
kingdom of truth and love among men. We can- 
not do without this element. There is no ade- 
quate substitute for it. When the spirit of 
reverence is gone; when men scorn to get down 
on their knees and pray; when they will not unite 
with their f ellowmen in worship ; when they turn 
away their feet from observing the Sabbath, 
seeking only their own pleasure on God's holy 
day; when they will not be taught from His 



A WONDERFUL STRUGGLE 167 

Word, and lose all interests in heavenly truths, 
one of the prime means of grace and of power 
is lost. There must be worship; there must 
be reverence; there must be spiritual enlighten- 
ment; always remembering our Lord's admoni- 
tion that it must be "in spirit and in truth." It 
must be sincere, and it must have in it the ele- 
ment of a true faith, or it becomes a merely 
formal piety which men despise. 

And then there is this other element repre- 
sented by Hur: — the man whose name (and that 
is all we know of him) means "free," "noble." 
The spirit of the free man! It is the element of 
active goodness, with its great-heartedness, its 
high-mindedness, its readiness to serve. Who is 
this man who has ascended into the hill of the 
Lord, and who supports one of the hands of 
Moses ? Let one of the Psalms make answer : 

"He that hath clean hands and a pure heart: 
Who hath not lifted up his hands to vanity 
Nor sworn deceitfully; 
He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, 
And righteousness from the God of his salvation." 

This is the element which men do in their 
heart of hearts honor. This is what they are 
rightly demanding of the Church. They seem 
to be demanding it in place of the more distinctly 
spiritual qualities of which we have been speak- 
ing. But God has here brought the two ele- 
ments together: Aaron and Hur: the spirit of 



1 68 RELIGION AND LIFE 

reverence, and the spirit of active goodness. 
Reverence without practical goodness becomes 
"ecclesiasticism"; and that of itself will never 
save the world. Practical goodness and efficiency 
without faith and the spirit of reverence become 
"secularism" ; and secularism of itself will never 
uplift the world. Neither is sufficient. But true 
reverence, and noble serviceableness ; Aaron and 
Hur — these together God has appointed for up- 
holding the hands of Religion; and whether it 
be in the Church, or whether it be in the soul 
of the individual, these two shall be the means 
by which God will maintain the life of faith, and 
pour forth His spirit of conquering power. 



28.— THE TRANSFIGURED FACE. 

"And as He was praying, the fashion of His countenance 
was altered, and His raiment became white and glistering.' , 
— Luke ix '.29. 

Without miracle, without artifice of any kind, 
the spirit of infinite love and wisdom incarnate 
in our Lord rayed out in manifest splendor on 
the mount of the Transfiguration. It was not 
a light suddenly turned upon Him ; it shone from 
within. As a thought or a love will kindle the 
eye and brighten the face of a man, so here — 
only infinitely — the spirit that was in the Son of 
Man irradiated the mantle of flesh that He wore, 
until, as a Psalm has said, He seemed to be 
clothed with light as a garment. Into the face 
there came a look that deepened and brightened 
until it shone as the sun; and He stood there 
upon the mountain with His three disciples a 
Being glowing with life, 

"Clothed with light inaccessible, 
Girt with omnipotence and love." 

I do not dwell upon the theological significance 
of this; the light which it throws upon the divine 
quality of the Lord's Humanity. I turn, rather, 
to one particular aspect of this incident. Why did 

169 



170 RELIGION AND LIFE 

it occur? How did it occur? And Luke's Gos- 
pel answers us by saying: "As He was pray- 
ing." As He was praying! Had He thrown 
Himself upon His knees, as in Gethsemane? 
Was He in agony? Was He in a transport of 
joy? Did He speak words which could be heard? 
We do not know. We only know that far up 
upon the height, He, the Son of Man, with three 
men gathered about Him, prayed; and that "as 
He was praying the fashion of His countenance 
was altered, and His raiment became white 
and gistering." Transfigured through prayer. 
Prayer ! that which, to the modern man, seems to 
be of such doubtful value; that which some are 
ready to speak of as childish and a refuge of the 
weak! 

I shall not go over familiar arguments in favor 
of prayer, nor take up the time in deploring what 
seems to be the growing disuse of it. There 
is just one aspect of the subject that I shall try 
to set forth : Prayer as a sign of the soul's re- 
sponsiveness to the life of God, Prayer, not as 
a duty; Prayer, not even as a means of grace; 
but Prayer as a test, a test of spiritual receptiv- 
ity, of sensitiveness to the life of God. If I can 
make this clear, I think it will help to answer a 
question which many people ask, even when they 
believe in prayer : namely, "Why did our Lord 
pray?" It is a question which is sure to be 
asked when His divinity is emphasized. 

Prayer, in the instance of the Transfiguration, 



THE TRANSFIGURED FACE 171 

does not seem to have come from a sense of duty, 
nor because of threatened peril, nor from pain, 
but it was a spontaneous outpouring of the Lord's 
love and joy. How may we think of prayer as 
spontaneous ? Is that our experience ? Do we not 
oftentimes have to force ourselves to pray; re- 
minding ourselves that, even if we do not feel 
like praying, we ought to pray ? Is it not some- 
thing, for the omission of which, we are quick 
to find excuses : — lack of time, physical weari- 
ness, the pressure of other things which will not 
be put off and which seem more important? Is 
there no temptation in the plea, that, after all, 
good deeds are better than prayers; and that to 
get down on one's knees twice a day, once a day, 
may belong to the merely traditional, conven- 
tional phase of religion? 

Is there not in all this something which ap- 
pears plausible? Are we not inclined to become 
more and more lenient with ourselves in this 
matter; less inclined to think of it as a fault of 
serious consequence, if we are irregular or neg- 
ligent in prayer; more easily persuaded to put 
public worship aside for other things — say, a 
longer time for repose on a Sunday morning, or 
a day in the country, where we think we will 
find greater benefit in needed physical relaxation 
and refreshment, and, if the mood serves, "com- 
munion with nature ?" 

I am not going to cry out against all this. I 
simply wish to ask, with you, what it means : — 



172 RELIGION AND LIFE 

whether it means, for instance, that the impor- 
tance of prayer has been over-stated; whether it 
means that we are becoming broader-minded, or 
that we are entering into life in a more normal 
way, freeing religion from formal exactions and 
making it more human? 

''Prayer/' wrote an illumined teacher years 
ago, "is internal speech with the Divine."* God 
is in the constant act of seeking us; God in 
His Providence is constantly trying to order 
everything for our eternal good within the limits 
of our freedom; God by His spirit of life is in 
us, enfolding us with His love, speaking to us 
by means of His truth. Does all this infinite 
care have any attraction for us? Do we care 
for it? Does it enter into our calculations as a 
real thing? In short, are we responsive to it? 
If so, we pray; that is, we speak. We speak 
just as certainly as we would speak in gratitude 
to some dear friend whom we knew to have been 
working for our good. Not to speak to that 
friend, to make no sign that we knew and ap- 
preciated all that he had done for us, would show 
us heartless. 

The comparison is a feeble one. Why? Be- 
cause God's care is constant; from the very be- 
ginning, through every moment of our life, 
through every experience, good or ill, through 
long periods of neglect, in times of folly 
and perverseness, in states of pride, in days of 
* Swedenborg. 



THE TRANSFIGURED FACE 173 

struggle, in moments of anguish, in hours when 
our cup of happiness seemed full to overflowing, 
in the moment when we shall draw our last 
earthly breath, in the day when we shall awake 
from death's short sleep and take up life in the 
newness of the resurrection. The Christian Re- 
ligion; the Incarnation — the everlasting sign of 
God's immanence in human life — these Sacred 
Scriptures with their holy assurances and prom- 
ises; all these are wasted upon us if we do not 
have this faith. And if we have it; if we know 
what God is doing for us day after day, week 
after week, year after year, and yet do not feel 
moved to say something ; accept all the blessing, 
all the care, without a word, as a matter of 
course; let the love and the thought be all on 
His side; let Him do for us, but not have the 
grace to open our hearts to Him — if that is our 
state of mind, what then? Let us know the 
truth : if w T e do not feel moved to pray, if we find 
it irksome, if we avoid it on the least excuse, 
if we get no satisfaction in it, it is because we are 
not spiritually responsive. We may be moral, 
we may be industrious, we may be benevolent, 
but something is the matter with our spiritual 
faculties. They are dormant, or they are atro- 
phied, or they are not developed. It is like deaf- 
ness; it is like blindness; the organs are there, 
but there is no response to the forces that are 
acting upon them. And the truest thing to do 
is to own that it is a lack, and not seek excuses, 



174 RELIGION AND LIFE 

or take refuge in the sophism that prayer belongs 
only to the "child-stage" of religion. Child- 
stage, indeed! Who does not know that the 
spiritual heroes and giants of the race, the men, 
who, humanly speaking, have done the most for 
the high welfare of mankind, have ever been 
men of prayer? They prepared themselves for 
their high tasks in prayer; they gained their 
courage when hard pressed ; they gained enlight- 
enment when bewildered; they caught their 
breath for fresh effort, in prayer. They fought 
their hardest fights ; they won their greatest vic- 
tories on their knees. Why? Because the man 
who prays — not formally and with vain repeti- 
tions, but spontaneously and with all his soul — 
such a man responds with all his higher facul- 
ties to the life of God. He seeks God because 
He knows that God has sought him; he speaks 
to God because he knows that God has spoken 
to him. He puts himself in league with the infi- 
nite; and in doing so, he lays hold of a power 
that multiplies his own feeble strength, renovates 
his will, and enlightens his intelligence. It is 
deep calling unto deep. Prayer is the mark of 
a man at his best. Therefore it is not strange 
that the human nature of our Lord prayed. It 
was that nature conscious of the Divine within it; 
sensitive to it, responsive to it, bent on acting 
with it and from it, and thus making itself one 
with it. 



THE TRANSFIGURED FACE 175 

How beautiful, then, to read, that "as He was 
praying His face began to shine as the sun and 
His garments became white as the light!" It 
was the Divine Life, the Infinite Love and Wis- 
dom of the Godhead, flaming up and raying out 
through the human nature assumed by Incarna- 
tion, and standing there in its perfect responsive- 
ness all radiant with an infinite strength. 



29-— THE FATE OF SOME VISIONS. 

"And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they 
shouted, he said unto Moses : There is a noise of war in the 
camp. And he said: It is not the voice of the shout of 
victory, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being 
overcome; but the noise of a miserable shout do I hear." 
— Joshua xxxii:i7-i8. 

Moses was coming down the mountain, bear- 
ing in his hands the Ten Commandments. How 
precious must these stone tablets have seemed to 
him ; almost too precious for his hands ; for, says 
the narrative, "the tables were the work of God, 
and the writing was the writing of God, graven 
upon the tables." With what joy and gratitude 
must Moses have expected the people to receive 
him when they knew what he was bringing them ! 
But as he drew near the camp, an uproar was 
heard; and Joshua, who was with Moses said: 
"It is not the voice of the shout of victory; 
neither is it the voice of them that cry for being 
overcome ; but the noise of a miserable shout do 
I hear." And then they came upon a disheart- 
ening spectacle : the children of Israel, dancing, 
singing and shouting around a golden calf! And 
Moses in his horror and discouragement flung 
the tables to the ground. It was not Moses, sim- 

176 



THE FATE OF SOME VISIONS 177 

ply; apparently it was God who had failed. The 
perversity of the people had made it impossible 
for them to receive a revelation from His hands 
such as He would give them. 

God gave the Law to the people a second 
time; but with a difference. Again Moses was 
called up into the mountain. Again the faith- 
ful leader passed into the region of the clouds. 
But this time, by Divine command, he hewed out 
with his own hands stone tables like unto the 
first. These he laid before God in his obedience ; 
and upon these tables, it is declared, the same 
words were written that were in the first tables. 
And with these Moses came down the mountain ; 
and this time the people received them, and laid 
them up in the little ark, or golden chest, made 
for their safe keeping. 

We ought to feel instinctively that there is an 
important spiritual truth imbedded within this 
incident. What does it mean to be told in the 
Book of Life that the stones on which God would 
make known His will in laws of infinite wisdom 
must, in the end, be those which have been hewn 
by human hands at the foot of the mountain, 
rather than those which He Himself had first 
chosen ? 

The general truth here represented is obvious : 
there is the Divine Ideal of what is true and 
good; but the natural perversity of man's nature 
makes it impossible for that ideal to be received ; 
and so God takes our life as it is, and in infinite 



178 RELIGION AND LIFE 

forbearance He seeks to inscribe upon it the 
laws of His wisdom. 

There is a notable illustration of this in our 
Sacred Scriptures. If God could write a book, 
could He not write it so that it would be ideally 
perfect? a book in which there would not be a 
single statement that need be questioned or ex- 
plained away? a book whose every narrative or 
precept would be transparently beautiful and 
true? Is not that the kind of a Bible which men 
think they would gladly receive and honor ? Such 
a book we may think of as answering to those 
stone tables, which, it is said, were the work of 
God's own hands. Such a book — so we may in- 
terpret this incident — God would gladly have 
given to men; as perfect in its letter as it is in 
its spirit. But such a Scripture, we may infer, 
men were unfitted to receive. It would have 
been too far above them. It would never have 
held them. To the pure, God would show Him- 
self pure. To a pure-minded, high-minded, re- 
generate race God would make the very stones 
on which He inscribed the laws of His love and 
wisdom, stones perfect and of His own fashion- 
ing. But since this could not be, God said in 
effect: "Hew out your own tables. Your his- 
tories, the stories of your leaders, your ordi- 
nances, all these things in which you take such 
a personal interest — this little tabernacle you are 
erecting, these ceremonials of worship, these 
feasts and fasts you are celebrating, these battles 



THE FATE OF SOME VISIONS 179 

you are fighting — hew out tables of stone from 
this human material; bring them to Me, and I 
will write upon them words of eternal life. Rude 
as they are; local as they seem to be; open to 
criticism as they will prove to be, I will yet make 
it possible for them to reveal My will." For 
the striking part of it is that the tables hewn 
out by Moses are said to have contained the 
self -same words which were written on the tables 
fashioned by the hand of God. God has so used 
this human material that deep into its natural 
substance the truths of eternal life have been en- 
graved. This makes the Scriptures as we have 
them doubly wonderful. 

Pass now to a more personal application of 
our subject. Have we not in this incident a rep- 
resentation of what is constantly occurring in 
us : the difference between the ideal and the ac- 
tual; the best which God would make possible 
for a man, but which he refuses ; and that poorer 
best which is all that a man will offer, and which 
God bids him bring up into the mountain, that 
He may yet write upon it, as willingly as if it 
were ideally perfect, the laws of His wisdom and 
love? 

A thousand illustrations instantly suggest 
themselves : The parent's ideal for his child ; the 
teacher's ideal for his scholar; the reformer's 
ideal for his city or country; — these, and then 
the actual conditions, whether of heredity, or of 
poor mental fibre, or of selfish greed which 



180 RELIGION AND LIFE 

parent, or teacher, or reformer must encounter, 
and into which he must be as truly anxious to 
inscribe the same principles of truth and good 
as he was ready to write upon tables of his 
own fashioning. When one is deeply in- 
terested in any project, it is comparatively simple 
to picture a set of circumstances which will cor- 
respond with the principles which one wishes to 
see embodied. We can do this in regard to our 
Church, our city, our friends, our home, or our 
work. We are very apt to write our ideal best 
for others. And we are as constantly encoun- 
tering conditions so different from these self- 
determined expectations, that we fling these first 
tables from us in despair. 

Here is where the lesson of infinite forbear- 
ance and adaptability comes in with its strong, 
wholesome teaching. There is an ideal life : — 
let us make sure of that. The Lord lived it. 
He came from heights of holiness that were in- 
finite. He did not shrink from depths of ignor- 
ance and shame to which He might bring His 
saving help. He did this not from compulsion, 
but spontaneously. A divine purpose was in His 
soul, and nothing could prevent Him from ad- 
vancing to its fulfilment. We have the divine 
ideal in our minds. Christ the Lord has placed 
it there. But as that ideal comes clown and ap- 
proaches the conditions of our natural life, it is 
too often true that it encounters the noise which 
smote the ears of Moses and Joshua. 



THE FATE OF SOME VISIONS 181 

i. "There is a noise of war in the camp." 
That means : the loves of self and of the world 
throw life into an uproar, and put it in opposi- 
tion to the life of love to the Lord and to the 
neighbor. 

2. "It is not the voice of the shout of victory, 
neither is it the voice of them that cry for being 
overcome." It is neither a complete triumph 
of evil, nor yet its defeat. It is a state of non- 
decision. 

3. "But the voice of a miserable shout do I 
hear." So the spirit of infinite wisdom charac- 
terizes this divided state of mind and of life. 
It is a mean response to God's all gracious pur- 
pose towards us, and to that invitation of the 
all-perfect Life : "Follow Me." Wishing to do 
it, but held off by counter-desires; vainly trying 
to do that impossible thing of serving two mas- 
ters: serving God in part, and in part serving 
mammon. 

And then comes the lesson of Divine grace, 
and our opportunity for redeeming our mistakes, 
climbing the mountain with the substances of our 
lower nature, imperfect as they are, and asking 
God to write the laws of His love and wisdom 
upon tables which we have done our human best 
to make suitable through repentance. 



30.— WORK OUT YOUR IDEALS. 

"As soon as ye be up early in the morning, and have 
light, depart." — I Samuel xxix:io. 

Do we not feel a kind of stir within these 
words; the marshalling of forces, the tramping 
of feet, the hasting away of power towards some 
moral or spiritual end ? The literal or historical 
meaning of the words will serve us as a back- 
ground. There was some doubt as to what Da- 
vid and his little army were to do. Should they 
make common cause with the Philistines and go 
up against Saul, who had become David's bitter- 
est enemy ; or should they go their own way, and 
fight their battles independently? That was the 
point at issue. And it was during this state of 
indecision that Achish said to David — and I 
shall restate the text in a more literal form : "As 
soon as ye be up early in the morning, and there 
is light, go on/' That meant: "Go your way 
in independence. Fight out your own battles.'' 
This counsel prevailed. The day dawned. Da- 
vid and his men bestirred themselves. The light 
came, and the little army marched away. 

"When ye are up early in the morning, and 
there is light, then go on." That means: when 

182 



WORK OUT YOUR IDEALS 183 

the better part of you, the spiritual part, has 
been aroused, and your heart feels and your mind 
sees some duty to be done, or some battle to be 
fought, or some kindness to be dispensed, then 
do it. Do not allow any needless delay. Do 
not let another set of thoughts, or feelings, or 
circumstances draw you off. When you are 
aroused, the feeling fresh, the duty clear, then 
go on! Do not stand there in the early morn- 
ing of some new state of feeling which the Lord 
has given you, and with the light falling about 
you simply remain in a state of rapture. Gather 
together your forces of intelligence and will, 
make them fall into line, give the signal and 
depart ! 

Ah, how easy it is to say these things ! I am 
only declaring our need ; not helping to solve the 
real difficulty involved in it. How can we make 
some righteous desire which has sprung up in 
our will and which, in the growing light of our 
intelligence, we feel sure to be right — how can 
we make it issue promptly, bravely, into duty? 
If we could get that question answered, or if we 
could get a reasonable degree of help upon it, 
would it not be what we every one of us need? 
For I think it has to be admitted that the mere 
stimulation of such desires by fervid appeals, 
until they fairly glow and throb with intensity, 
does not meet the situation. Who of us has not 
gone forth from some service, or arisen from 
the reading of some book, or heard some strain 



184 RELIGION AND LIFE 

of music die away, or turned from some sight 
of sea, or mountain, or sunset, or evening star 
with a high appeal knocking at our hearts only 
to lapse with a certain dreadful sureness and even 
swiftness into our ordinary moods, with little or 
nothing done? What of the people who are all 
impulse, all emotion; the people who are easily 
aroused to a state of enthusiasm and of rapture, 
from whose lips words of praise and admiration 
come so ecstatically and so easily — but who do 
nothing? What of the people who weep over 
imaginary woes in books and plays, but who 
hide themselves from contact with some actual 
case of want or of misery because it is repulsive 
and troublesome? What of such people? They 
are of very little help in the world. And what 
of such emotions? They are of very little use. 
Indeed, it is a fair question whether such emo- 
tions, in case they do not lead to some tangible 
effort, are not a positive detriment to character. 
In this connection the following passage from 
one of Frederick Robertson's sermons is well 
worth recalling: "Here is a law of our nature 
from which there is no escaping : impressions 
which are made upon us in the way of feeling 
merely get weaker and weaker the oftener they 
are repeated ; but the habits of love which you get 
by being useful and active in doing others good 
get stronger and stronger the oftener you prac- 
tise them. That acquaintance with sorrow which 
is only passive loses its power every time you 



WORK OUT YOUR IDEALS 185 

see it. And if a man wanted to have a thor- 
oughly hardened and callous heart, we can tell 
him of no way so sure as this : Let him become 
familiar with the distresses of his fellow-men, 
and do nothing to relieve them; let him read of 
pauper misery, and content himself with theoriz- 
ing about the improvidence of the poor; let him 
listen to appeals . . . which attempt to 
move his charity, and pass the plate without a 
sacrifice — we will promise him his sensibilities 
shall soon be placed beyond the power of wound- 
ing. . . . All this is practical. If we would 
acquaint ourselves with sorrow to any purpose, 
let us try to relieve it. For Christian love is an 
active, hardy thing. Let a Christian familiarize 
himself with the trials of the poor. Let him 
hear their tales of distress. Let him see them 
in their malady. But unless he wishes to ruin 
his heart, let him do as the Samaritan did ; bind 
up the wounds, and not pass by on the other 
side." 

Prof. William James maintained that, from 
the standpoint of psychology, when a resolve or 
a fine glow of feeling is allowed to evaporate 
without bearing practical fruit, it is worse than 
a chance lost; the mind gets into the habit of 
evaporating, and becomes more and more satis- 
fied to remain "in a weltering sea of sensibility 
and emotion." He maintained that on this 
ground excessive novel-reading and theatre- 
going, and the excessive indulgence of music 



186 RELIGION AND LIFE 

(for those who are neither performers nor suffi- 
ciently trained to listen to it in an intellectual 
way) has probably a relaxing effect upon char- 
acter. "One becomes filled with emotions which 
habitually pass without prompting to any deed, 
and the inertly sentimental condition is kept up." 

The remedy is obvious : Never to suffer our- 
self to have an exalted emotion, to be moved by 
a power which creates a longing of a heavenly 
character, without making an effort to express 
it in some active way. The opportunity for 
expression may be small ; but before the emotion 
has evaporated, before the longing has floated 
away into mist, do some kindly act, however sim- 
ple it may be. "As soon as ye be up early in 
the morning, and it is light, go on." 

This sounds like a simple thing; but it is a 
test of character. It is a question not of wishes, 
but of will. Let us broaden the subject a little. 
Let us not simply take emotions which may 
spring up suddenly, but take some earnest desire 
which we wish to carry out. How is it to be 
done? We see difficulties in the way. We im- 
agine others. We are opposed in our mind by 
conflicting desires. The "path of discharge" 
seems blocked up. How can we clear it? How 
can we pass, as some one has expressed it, from 
the subjunctive mood, with its "might, would, 
could, or should," to the imperative mood, with 
its "Goon?" 

If we could answer that question we should 



WORK OUT YOUR IDEALS 187 

be clearing up one of the most important prob- 
lems in our lives. This much is clear : The 
whole difficulty is a mental one. It is certainly 
not a physical one. For it has been well urged 
that it is not more difficult, physically, to do a 
right act than a wrong one ; to say "Yes" than to 
say "No ;" to smile than to frown ; to take a for- 
bidden object than to leave it. The drama is a 
mental drama. It is mainly a question of will; 
and "the essential achievement of the will is to 
attend to a difficult object and hold it fast before 
the mind." How can we get the idea of a wise 
action to remain before us, until it gains posses- 
sion of the field of consciousness, drives off 
everything that is hostile or incongruous, and 
leads to appropriate action? 

The main thing is to keep the attention 
strained on some one object, known to be right, 
until that idea, that truth fills the mind, gets pos- 
session of it, and gains its assent. That, with 
the Lord's help, it is possible for any one to do. 
To do it is to gain strength. To do it repeat- 
edly is to gain character. Better than any arti- 
ficial standards of excellence, such as agreeable- 
ness, wealth, cleverness, is this ability to hold to 
a righteous idea to the exclusion of other ideas, 
until it becomes reinforced and established and 
then leads promptly, surely to some appropriate 
action. "As soon as ye be up early in the morn- 
ing, and it is light, then go on." 



3i.— PASSING THROUGH THE ENEMY'S 
COUNTRY. 

"Let us pass through thy land : I will go along by the 
highway, I will turn neither unto the right hand nor to 
the left. Thou shalt sell me meat for money, that I may 
eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink; only 
I will pass thror^h on my feet — until I pass over Jordan 
into the land which the Lord our God giveth us." — Deut. 
ii \2j-2g. 

These words of Moses to the king of Heshbon 
have within them the ring of spiritual truth, 
which we ought to be quick to hear. They are 
expressive of a noble independence which may 
very well appeal to us. Here is the picture of a 
people, trained to believe that they have been 
called of God, coming to an enemy's country, de- 
termined to pass through, peaceably if possible, 
but in any case to pass through it, bound to reach 
a land waiting for them across the river. And 
here is the further picture of this strange little 
nation coming along the king's highway, led by a 
pillar of cloud, and at their head a golden chest 
called the "ark," containing their Ten Command- 
ments, borne on the shoulders of priests. 

Surely any one can see in this a representation 
of the advance of spiritual forces. The Prom- 

188 



PASSING THROUGH 189 

ised Land is a state of heavenly-mindedness to 
be attained, God helping us, while we are still in 
this life. The children of Israel are the spiritual 
nature of man, called of God, trained and in- 
structed in the way one should go, walking in the 
Law of the Lord as the people followed their 
ark. This land of Moab with its pleasant fields 
and vineyards, is this natural, external life 
with its fruitfulness, its occupations, its pleas- 
ures. And these watchful, lively, hostile Amor- 
ites, building their towns on the tops of the moun- 
tains, — these are the loves of evil which view 
with alarm the coming of this divinely-directed 
host, not wishing to be disturbed by its influence 
or dislodged by its power. 

This, then, is the situation: Israel has come 
to the land of Moab. The Amorites are watch- 
ing from their hills. Shall the people of Jehovah 
pass through? Shall they try to go round it? 
Or shall they just stay there, camping on its bor- 
ders? And then comes this word of Moses to 
Sihon : "Let me pass through thy land : I will 
go along by the highway; I will turn neither to 
the right hand nor to the left. Thou shalt sell 
me meat for money, that I may eat ; and give me 
water for money, that I may drink; only I will 
pass through on my feet." And he is dull of 
hearing, indeed, who does not detect in these 
words that stirring, determined voice in the soul, 
which, under the inspiration of God, says in mo- 
ments of high courage, "I will not shirk this nat- 



iqo RELIGION AND LIFE 

ural life; I will not beg off from it; I will not be 
afraid of it; I will pass through it. But I will 
pass through it in spiritual independence, as one 
called and led of God. I will keep to the high- 
way of life. I will not be turned from my 
course. I will not surrender myself to this 
world's pleasures. It will not be easy ; but I am 
willing to pay for it. I will preserve my spir- 
itual independence. I will keep to the highway. 
I will pass through on my feet." 

Here is this old problem which faces us each 
time we enter upon a new week : living the eter- 
nal life in the midst of time (to use Harnack's 
phrase), entering into practical duties, fulfilling 
necessary relationships in a noble spirit, in a 
courageous spirit, in the spirit worthy of one 
who believes in God and heaven. 

If we are inclined to be pessimistic; if our soul 
loves to sing 

"Earth is a desert drear;" 

it is good to listen to the voice that rang out in 
the wilderness : "Prepare ye the way of the 
Lord; make straight in the desert a highway 
for our God!" If the selfishness and worldliness 
that are about us seem oppressive and blighting; 
if this natural life seems like a trap, it is good to 
remember that it is written : "And an highway 
shall be there, and a way; and it shall be called 
the way of holiness; the wayfaring men though 
fools shall not err therein." 



PASSING THROUGH 191 

It is not good to just weep over life. It is not 
good to sneer at it. It is not good to think that 
one who is high-minded and unselfish cannot pass 
through it without being smirched and injured. 
On the other hand, it is not good to view life 
lightly. It is neither good nor wise to smile 
good-naturedly at everything that happens and 
exists. That kind of optimism is very foolish; 
and its feebleness is soon felt. Life is serious. 
Whether we will it or no, whether we think it or 
no, we are moving on towards a future state. 
The way in which we pass through this present 
life is the most serious thing which confronts us 
as spiritual beings. The road which our feet 
are pressing leads somewhere. There is a right 
way and a wrong way of making the journey. 

"Let me pass through thy land." Thus the spir- 
itual man in us should speak. This means, in the 
first place, a determination to go through life, 
and not try to run away from it. This world's 
life has its conditions, good and bad. It has its 
material interests, its industries, its pleasures. 
But the words express the determination to go 
through life as a spiritual being. The Israelite 
was to go through the land of Moab as an Israel- 
ite. He was to follow the ark. We are to go 
through life as Christians ; following, not a little 
golden shrine, but following the Lord who ful- 
filled the Law in His own life. In some way 
we must preserve our Christian character. The 
easiest thing in the world to say ; but does it not 



192 RELIGION AND LIFE 

bring us face to face with one of the deepest 
problems of our existence ? Without being mere 
theorists, without being impracticable visionaries, 
ought we not to pass through the conditions and 
activities of this life as Christians? The work 
in the store or in the street, our recreations, our 
social relations, our family relations, our citizen- 
ship — should they not all bear the stamp of some- 
thing that is definitely, positively, unmistakably 
spiritual? Christian men in the shop; Christian 
men at play; Christian fathers and mothers; 
Christian rulers; Christian citizens. 

Are we failing at this point ? Are people who 
profess to be followers of Jesus Christ going into 
the various activities of life as though they had 
never heard, much less professed the name of 
the Lord Jesus? Are they just as avaricious, 
just as hard at a bargain, just as ambitious for 
place or reputation, just as easily embittered by 
wrong, just as strong in their personal dislikes, 
just as fond of show and luxury as though they 
had never heard the "Follow Me!" of the Divine 
Master? 

This, then, is our spiritual necessity: to pass 
through life without sacrificing our higher na- 
ture. And here is a simple rule for the doing 
of this difficult thing: "I will go along by the 
highivay" The highway is the reasonable way; 
the clear, straight, middle course. There is no 
form of human activity or pleasure through 
which this highway does not pass; for there is 



PASSING THROUGH 193 

always a rational and irrational way of doing 
anything. 

There is a highway through literature. One 
can read the things which are worth while; or 
one can turn aside and indulge an unwholesome 
taste for the sensational, the vicious, the vulgar. 

There is a highway through the drama. There 
are plays that are worthy of the dramatic art; 
and there are plays that are a disgrace to it. 

There is a highway through property and 
money; a reasonable desire to gain wealth, to 
secure advantages and comforts, to provide for 
one's own, to make noble use of what has been 
acquired ; and there is a swinish greed to become 
mere possessors of all these things. 

There is a highway through domestic life, 
through the professions, through the arts, 
through one's recreations, through such practical 
considerations as what we shall eat, and what we 
shall drink, and wherewithal we shall be clothed. 

There is a reasonable and an unreasonable way 
of entering into all these things ; a temperate and 
an intemperate way; a useful and a harmful way. 
The place for the Christian man is along the 
highway; along the plain road of use and mod- 
eration. He has no business to turn aside. Let 
him be known as one who does not run away 
from this world's life; but let him be known with 
equal certainty as one who has spiritual inde- 
pendence enough to keep to what is reasonable 
and useful. And let him be determined in his 



194 RELIGION AND LIFE 

own mind that this is the right thing for him to 
do. He will not be beguiled into forgetting that 
he is on a journey. He is "passing through/' 
Let him press on in the spirit of these words : 
"In the way, in the way will I go; I will neither 
turn to the right hand nor to the left; thou shalt 
sell me meat for money, that I may eat; and 
give me water for money ; that I may drink : only 
I will pass through on my feet — until I shall 
pass over Jordan into the land which the Lord 
our God giveth us." 



32.— THE FOUR GIRDLES. 

M . . . Gird thyself and serve Me." — Luke xvii:8. 

These words of our Lord, taken from one of 
His parables, may be considered as His appeal 
to our human life. That appeal is that we shall 
gird ourselves for service. "Gird thyself and 
serve Me." 

To appreciate the expressiveness of the sym- 
bol, we need to remember that in the Orient, the 
robes being long and flowing, the girdle is a ne- 
cessity. To see a man come forth from his house 
with his girdle tightly wrapped about him, and 
the ends of his robe caught up in it, would indi- 
cate at once that he was going forth to work, or 
to make a journey, or to do something of an 
active nature. To see the girdle laid aside, would 
mean as surely that the work was done and the 
time for rest had come. And so when the Lord 
would reveal the importance of a state of spir- 
itual readiness and activity, He does so through 
this command : "Let your loins be girded about 
and your lights burning." To the Oriental this 

195 



196 RELIGION AND LIFE 

would mean: "Be prepared for instantly doing 
some service for which you may he needed." 

The Scriptures, in their expressive way, hold 
up before us four kinds of girdles: 

There is the leathern girdle. 

There is the linen girdle. 

There is the girdle of sackcloth. 

There is the golden girdle. 

These girdles express various kinds of minis- 
tries through which we may be called upon to 
pass in order that we may develop our fullest 
capacity to serve. 

1. The Girdle of Leather. 

Elijah the Tishbite and John the Baptist each 
wore a girdle of leather. And the rude dress of 
each was in keeping with the character of the 
message with which each was charged. In the 
days of Ahab, as in the days of Herod, evil was 
gaining the upper hand. Israel was crouching 
in a kind of spiritual helplessness before the 
power of wickedness, and luxury, and idolatry. 
But each time sin found itself confronted by a 
stern figure, that came one scarce knew whence, 
that went one scarce knew whither. A rough 
garment of camel's hair, a girdle of leather about 
the loins — that was all. And the speech of these 
prophets of the wilderness was as plain and se- 
vere; just a sharp, peremptory challenge; a chal- 
lenge, though the wrongdoer were a king; a 
denunciation of sin; a threat of punishment; a 



THE FOUR GIRDLES 197 

stern "Thou shalt not!" when evil seemed to say 
"I shall!" a cry of "Repent!" that shook the 
souls of those who heard it. 

Who does not see the point? The Lord's ap- 
peal to man is made in the earnestness of love — 
a love that would make every human being 
happy, and serviceable, and make him the man 
the Lord knows him capable of being. But he 
who would respond to this call must battle with 
evil. It is not our fault if as we emerge into 
manhood evil tries to rule, and tells us things 
are right which are not right, and tries to con- 
trol us by selfishness. No love of parents, no 
flattery of friends, no sophistries or denials can 
withhold us from that stern experience with evil. 
Face to face we must meet it, and deal with it, 
and decide the question of its supremacy. We 
must wear the girdle of leather. God helping us, 
we must gain the power of self-restraint, and be 
able to hold under control these loves of the 
world and of the flesh w T hich would break out 
into sinful indulgence and stain and weaken our 
manhood. 

2. The Girdle of Linen. 

Religion, however, involves more than the ex- 
ercise of self-restraint. The wilderness man with 
the leathern girdle about his loins, and his sound- 
ing cry, Metanoiete! was a forerunner. He whom 
He ushered in led the way into the more posi- 
tive duties of righteousness, and when, girded 



198 RELIGION AND LIFE 

with a towel, He knelt and washed His disciples' 
feet, He expressed by this act the great dignity 
of a life inspired by the high desire to be of use; 
to care for other needs than just one's own; to 
have the spirit, the insight, the divine art to 
touch with sympathetic, helpful hands the hum- 
blest wants of others. To be girded with linen 
after the example of our Lord, to earn the right 
to say to one's family, or one's circle of friends, 
or the larger circle of our fellow-men, "I am 
among you as one that serveth," is a very high 
achievement. 

This is not idealism; it is a practical, work- 
ing doctrine of righteousness; — Christ's doctrine 
of the serviceable life. The Lord's persecutors 
thought it was a fine thing to mock Him as He 
hung on the cross with this taunt : "He saved 
others; Himself He cannot save!" Narrowness 
and hate had blinded their eyes to the law of 
service which in Him had its complete realiza- 
tion. They intended it as a slight, nay, as a con- 
demnation of any claims to greatness. Have ye 
thought what a slight, and what a condemnation 
it would have been, could they in truth have re- 
versed that saying, and, pointing their fingers, 
and wagging their heads at Him, have cried: 
"He saved Himself; others He could not save!" 
That is the shame of life; — to have possessions, 
or intelligence, or influence, and not seek to bene- 
fit the world in which one lives! That is the 
defeat of life; to be abundantly blessed oneself, 



THE FOUR GIRDLES 199 

and not make our benefits a blessing to others ! 
Look around and see if this be not true. Men 
of possession, thinking they are happy, but rest- 
less, pulling down their barns and building 
greater. Men of achievement, men of intellect 
only half enjoying their blessings, because they 
have not the courage or the unselfishness to act 
from this motive of use to others. And the les- 
son of the linen girdle is this: After we have 
struggled against sin, and after we have had an 
apprenticeship in honest possession and achieve- 
ment, then it is a very high privilege to take the 
next step: possessing and achieving from this 
high motive of serving others, and so being 
girded, like our Master, with the girdle of linen. 

3. The Girdle of Sackcloth. 

And then what ? Do we need any other form 
of experience to enable us to fulfil this divine in- 
junction: "Gird thyself and serve Me?' The 
girdle of leather, and the girdle of linen — are 
not these enough? And the Scriptures in their 
own expressive way, point to a third girdle — not 
of leather, nor of linen, but of sackcloth. And 
the lesson of the third girdle runs something like 
this: It is well to have fought the fight against 
evil; it is well to have tried to make life unself- 
ishly helpful; but be not dismayed if trouble and 
disappointment become a part of the experience 
of your life. Not that the struggle against evil 
may not have been a brave struggle ; not that the 



200 RELIGION AND LIFE 

desire and effort to be of use have not been sin- 
cere; and yet the Perfect Life of all, who was 
tempted at all points, yet without sin; who came 
"not to be ministered unto, but to minister" — the 
Sinless One, the absolutely Unselfish One — even 
He was heard to say, "My soul is exceeding sor- 
rowful even unto death." Sorrow such as this 
is not punishment. Bereavement is not punish- 
ment. They are one more form of experience 
through which men pass in attaining complete- 
ness of character. For who may not know that 
without something of this, the spirit never be- 
comes opened to its inmost depth, nor does it 
become capable of the truest tenderness, and sym- 
pathy, and power? So many a soul is deepened 
and strengthened, and in the end the words of 
the Psalm come true : 

"Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; 
Thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with 
gladness. 

4. The Golden Girdle. 

And then there is but one thing more: the 
girdle of gold; — the girdle of gold, seen only in 
heaven, first in the vision of the Son of Man 
who was girt about the breast with a golden 
girdle, and afterwards in the vision of the seven 
angels. After the struggle against evil, and the 
effort to make life unselfish, and the endurance 
of trial, the long apprenticeship comes to its full 
reward. The struggle with evil ceases, the desire 
to do good becomes spontaneous, the ministry 



THE FOUR GIRDLES 201 

of sorrow is changed into gladness. The girdles 
of leather, of linen, and of sackcloth are suc- 
ceeded by the girdle of gold — heaven's emblem 
of pure, unselfish love which now becomes the 
encircling and the protecting power of life. 

Here, may we not justly say, is the triumph of 
life. Of some things we have to learn to say: 
"I will not do this, for it is a sin against God." 
Of other things we have to say: "This is my 
duty. I will try to do it, and do it faith fully." 
Of still other experiences we have to look on 
high and say: "In the shadow of thy wings 
will I make my refuge until these calamities be 
overpast/' But the Christian ideal of the faith- 
ful life is one of freedom, and joy, and loving 
activity. Even in heaven there is the girdle still 
— but of gold. 

"Gird thyself and serve Me." 

So the lesser ministries and experiences lead 
up to the greater. So, almost unconsciously, we 
are helped of God to gird ourselves that in the 
end we may serve Him from love and in glad- 
ness of heart. So may we learn to live, temper- 
ately, helpfully, uncomplainingly, that at the last 
we may come into the freedom and joy of the 
life of true Christian love. Not through our 
own might ; for to an angel in the highest heaven 
the words must still be true : 

"It is God that girdeth me with strength, 
And maketh my way perfect." 



33-— MAN THE ANGEL; 

". . . The measure of a man, that is, of an angel:" — 
Rev. xxi:i7. 

The Bible doctrine of man is summed up in 
this word "angel." That word expresses in a 
most suggestive way the standard and the 
capabilities of manhood, not simply hereafter but 
now and here, whatever our situation, whatever 
our calling. 

For, as the Bible uses this word, it applies 
just as much to men on the earth as to spiritual 
beings in the other world. We use it as if it 
applied only to the latter: but the Bible does 
not do so. Again and again it uses this term as 
referring to man on the earth. See how this is, 
and what it implies. 

The one general term used in the Hebrew Old 
Testament is Malak; and Malak means a mes- 
senger. The Greek equivalent for this is An- 
gelos, from which comes our word "angel." But 
this, too, simply means a messenger, an agent. 
It may refer to a good or to a bad messenger; 
to the messengers of heaven, or to evil messen- 
gers. It may refer to a messenger come from 
God out of heaven, or to a messenger between 

202 



MAN THE ANGEL 203 

man and man. An angel is a messenger, a mes- 
senger is an angel, in heaven or on earth, as the 
case may be. The two angels who came to 
Sodom at even to rescue Lot and his family, were 
messengers. The angel who cried to Hagar in 
the wilderness was a messenger. The angel who 
called to Abraham as the knife was descending 
upon his boy, was a messenger. The angels who 
ascended and descended upon Jacob's dream- 
ladder, were messengers. The angel who halted 
Balaam in the way; who stood before Gideon; 
who fed Elijah; who stopped the mouths of the 
lions to whom Daniel had been cast — all these 
were messengers. The one word used for them 
all is this term, Malak, a messenger. 

The same is true in the New Testament. The 
angel that appeared to Zacharias, to Mary, to 
Joseph, to the Bethlehem shepherds, to the Son 
of Man in the wilderness, to the women at the 
resurrection — these were messengers. Indeed, 
it is only by the context that we can determine 
whether the messengers are of heaven or of 
earth. Whom does Jacob send to Esau, or Moses 
to Balaam, or Gideon to his friends, or Saul to 
David, or Jezebel to Elijah, or Elisha to Naa- 
man? A malak, "a messenger." John the Bap- 
tist, languishing in the dungeon of Macchaerus, 
longing for some comforting word or sign from 
Him whose faithful herald he has been, sends his 
messengers — literally his "angels." Of John 
himself, our Lord used the words: "Behold, I 



204 RELIGION AND LIFE 

send My messenger, (My angel) before My face, 
who shall prepare the way before Me." He 
would go up to Jerusalem for the last time; 
and as He goes, He would proclaim once more 
His good news to all who will hear Him. What 
does He do? "He sent [strictly speaking] 
angels (messengers) before His face." 

These Bible facts bring us back to the simple 
truth that God's angels are messengers ; and that 
every true messenger is God's angel. The doc- 
trine that angels are a specially created race may 
be in the line of ancient mythologies and relig- 
ions; but it is not Scriptural. I do not forget 
the passage, "For thou hast made him [that is, 
man] a little lower than the angels." That is 
what the translators say ; not what the Bible says. 
What does the Bible say? This: "Thou hast 
made him a little lower than God/' (Elohim). 
And so, what the little verse seems eager to say 
is this: Between God and man there are no 
beings. Man stands next in line, next to Him 
who created him. The only angels who are 
created are men. When they are taken into 
heaven, they are men still — men redeemed, 
purified, their earthly robes put by, their hin- 
drances removed, their spiritual capacities en- 
larged, their real nature brought forth and 
crowned with lovingkindness and tender mer- 
cies. "See thou do it not!" cried the angel to 
John, who had fallen on his knees to worship 
his heavenly guide. Why not? Was he not in 



MAN THE ANGEL 205 

a higher sphere? Might he not be of a higher 
race ? But his answer was, "I am thy fellow-serv- 
ant" A fellow-servant "in the Kingdom and pa- 
tience of Jesus Christ." There is nothing higher 
than that. Or rather, there is nothing between 
that and God. 

Does not this explain in a single word the 
nature or purpose of our life, both here and 
hereafter? That purpose is to be a messenger. 
This is our intended office. This is our holiest 
calling. We are born into the world that we 
may be trained in that office; we are taken into 
the spiritual world that we may continue in it 
, under more perfect conditions. For a messen- 
ger is one who becomes possessed of some fact, 
or experience, or blessing, and then conveys it 
with all its possibilities of help and joy to some 
one else. And the great Bible doctrine of life is 
that this is the highest mission that any one can 
fulfil. "Freely ye have received, freely give." 

What is the parent, what is the teacher, what 
is the true friend? Are they not messengers, 
bringing to those who need it the benefit of what 
they have learned, or believed, or achieved in the 
way of character? Look which way we will, 
and is it not true, as another has said, that 
"wherever we find the greatest, we find those to 
whom life's supremest meaning has been to ex- 
press something, to say some word with the lips, 
or with the pen, or with the pencil, or with the 
brush, or with the chisel, or with the instrument 



206 RELIGION AND LIFE 

of music, or with the sword, or with the use of 
property, or with the force and truth of charac- 
ter, which will honor God, the Power-giver, and 
which will bless, strengthen, delight, or guide 
others in the saying of it"* 

Is not this a high calling ? Is it not a serious 
responsibility? Whatever we have received of 
light, of comfort, of strength in temptation, of 
gladness in victory, is for the light, the comfort, 
the strength, the gladness of some one whom 
we can reach. It is our message, which we are 
to tell, not always nor chiefly by words; but in 
what men feel as expressive of our essential life 
and character. 

If we grasp this purpose of life, how it will 
help us to think of the life after death! The 
messenger at last lies down to rest; his earthly 
raiment is put by; his lips are mute; his hands 
are still. "God giveth His beloved sleep." Ah, 
when he presently awakes ; when, not in his physi- 
cal, but in his spiritual body, he opens his eyes, 
and takes the hands held out to him in greeting, 
and rises to his feet, and speaks again — what 
will he be then? "An angel!" men cry; "to see, 
to hear, to think, to feel, what eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, what God hath prepared for them 
that love Him." Aye, God be praised! But still, 
a messenger ; a messenger in heaven, whose high- 
est honor and whose greatest joy it shall be to 
express in life what comes to mind and heart 
*Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall 



MAN THE ANGEL 207 

from God, and be a means of joy and of bless- 
ing to others. It may be in delighted and useful 
associations with others ; it may be in caring for 
those who come into the spiritual world and need 
counsel and guidance; it may be in sympathetic 
ministrations with fellow-servants who are still 
on the earth. Life thus comes to its completeness. 
The things which have hindered and hurt, the 
doubts that darkened, the mistakes and wrong- 
doings that saddened — these "former things are 
passed away." 

How real and thrilling that must be! The 
true man's life measuring up to the stature of an 
angel, a messenger of God! 

"And day by day, from state to state, 

By gentlest growth the soul will rise : 
No sudden shock will mar the peace 

And splendor of the skies. 
As childhood into manhood rose, 
The angel from the human grows; 

And all that Love has planted here 

Ripens to perfect beauty there." 



34-— THE GOSPEL AND THE POOR. 

"He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor." 
—Luke iv:i8. 

"And He lifted up His eyes on His disciples and said: 
Blessed are ye poor : for yours is the Kingdom of God/' — 
Luke vi :20. 

The highest message of the Gospel to the poor 
is the Lord Himself. He showed unfailing 
sympathy with poverty as an earthly condition. 
By His acts and by His words He left the in- 
delible impression, that the duties of compassion 
for the unfortunate, and of help for the helpless 
are elemental in the Christian life. We cannot 
read that exquisite parable of the Good Samari- 
tan, or the parable of the Judgment in which they 
who have shown kindness to the hungry and 
thirsty, the homeless and naked, the sick and im- 
prisoned, are commended with those gracious 
words : "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the 
least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me" — « 
I say we cannot read these parables without 
knowing how dear to His heart was every form 
of lovingkindness to the unfortunate and the 
poor. 

Christianity is not the first religion to exalt 
208 



THE GOSPEL AND THE POOR 209 

charity as a virtue ; but the infinite tenderness of 
its Founder for all whose lives are burdened; 
His personal contact with want, and misery, and 
helplessness of every kind, without shrinking, 
without making it appear that it was a virtuous 
or a laborious thing to do, but rather as being 
the spontaneous expression of the love of His 
nature — this caused the truth of personal sym- 
pathy and kindness to glow and live with new 
power and beauty. Through Him it passed 
from a duty into one of the essentials of a truly 
human life. He who is without it, is lacking in 
one of the elements of the Christian life and 
character. 

We think of the Lord as stirred to sympathy 
at the sight of distress. Is a helpless cripple, a 
man "sick of the palsy/' lowered from an 
opening in the roof and laid at His feet? In- 
stantly the man is enfolded in His great com- 
passion. He sees the forlorn figure; He looks 
into the piteous face. Surely we shall not err if 
we think that the depths of His compassion were 
stirred. But His words were a surprise : — "Son, 
be of good cheer : thy sins be forgiven thee." 
The man was not thinking about his sins, but 
his palsy ! His friends had not gone to all their 
trouble because he was prostrated spiritually, 
but because he could not move his limbs! And 
yet the Searcher of hearts saw what no one else 
saw ; cared for what no one else cared for. He 
would heal his body; but chiefly as a sign that 



210 RELIGION AND LIFE 

He longed to enable him to rise up in the power 
of the spirit and live his life as the child of God. 
It would be a strange mind that did not see 
that our Lord's concern for the poor and the 
afflicted reached back through the outward con- 
ditions before Him, and applied itself with even 
greater sympathy to corresponding states of mind 
and of soul which were so clear to Him. Any 
one could see the cases of poverty, which then, 
as now, were all too numerous. Few could see 
or sympathize with conditions of spiritual pov- 
erty which abounded. But He saw and felt 
them. The people about Him had so few spir- 
itual ideas! They had so few heavenly desires! 
It seemed to be a time of unusual leanness of 
soul. Their spirits were not fed. If they had 
good desires, they had no knowledge with which 
to adequately clothe and express them. Their 
minds, their spiritual natures were poor. And it 
touched Him. To this kind of poverty He came 
with His infinite wealth of love and wisdom; 
and it was the joy of His life to alleviate that 
form of destitution; to reveal to the poor in 
spirit the sureness of the Divine Providence, to 
help them realize that they were the children of 
God, to encourage them to believe that they had 
souls and that they were precious in the divine 
sight; to make the spiritual life a reality to them, 
so that faith, and love, and unselfishness, and 
righteousness, would become great possessions 
to them; to take away the horror of death; to 



THE GOSPEL AND THE POOR 211 

lift the burden of discouragement which some 
of them felt because of their unworthiness, by 
convincing them of His power to forgive sins. 

The spiritually poor ! How dear they were in 
His eyes as objects, not simply of His compas- 
sion, but of His gracious help! Not too proud 
to listen; not too self-satisfied to care. In 
want! "Hungry and thirsty, their soul 
fainted in them. ,, And He, with everything to 
give ! "He hath anointed Me to preach the gos- 
pel to the poor." The words of that beautiful 
prophecy about His mission must have meant so 
much to Him! That part of His ministry must 
have been so precious to Him! "And He lifted 
up His eyes on His disciples and said: Blessed 
are ye poor !" This to His disciples ! They were 
not ragged men. Some of them, perhaps all of 
them, had homes and property which they had 
left that they might be with Him. He called them 
"poor," not as if it were to their discredit, nor 
even as a misfortune, but as something which 
was worthy of a great blessing. And His words 
suggest an interpretation of this word "poor" 
that is honorable. There need be no mystery 
about it. In another gospel He is quoted as say- 
ing: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." It is the 
first beatitude. And to be poor in spirit in a high 
sense means not to be proud, not to be regardful 
of self. It belongs to that class of passages which 
seem so paradoxical, but which are so true : 

"He that saveth his life shall lose it; and he 



212 RELIGION AND LIFE 

that loseth his life for My sake, the same shall 
find it." 

"He that exalteth himself shall be abased; and 
he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." 

The life that is here marked for divine appro- 
bation is the life that is not always looking out 
for self; that is not constantly taking umbrage 
at what may seem like lack of recognition; that 
is not jealous at others' successes; that is not 
forever trying to evade responsibility, or to es- 
cape from duties which may be hard. It is the 
life of self-denying love, that can deprive itself 
of pleasure if a greater good requires it. Some- 
times we instinctively say of a great nature (and 
only of the great) : "He never seems to think 
of himself. He always seems ready to do what 
he can. If criticisms wound him, he does not 
show it. Praise seems not to affect him. He is 
not proud. He is not headstrong. He seems 
not to look out sufficiently for his own interests." 

We know the other type : the man who is 
forever "finding" himself in the sense of seeing 
himself in all that he does; who rarely if ever 
"loses" himself by becoming so absorbed in some 
work or some cause that the success of it means 
more to him than his own aggrandizement ; who 
is ever on the watch lest he shall not get the 
credit of whatever good he does. Of the two 
types, the first may be described as "the poor in 
spirit;" To such the Lord applied the term 
"Blessed." He says in substance : "It is a blessed 



THE GOSPEL AND THE POOR 213 

thing for you if you are not always thinking 
about yourself. It is a blessed thing for you if 
you can lose sight of yourself in doing the duty 
that falls to your lot, or in doing good to others. 
Blessed are ye poor. Happy are ye that have 
this quality of self-denying, and self -forgetful 
love/' In the eyes of One who knows, it is a 
mark of power. It is sure to result in the high- 
est influence. It cannot fail to bring the truest 
happiness. "Blessed are ye poor; for yours is 
the Kingdom of God." 



35-— THE RIGHT OF DECISION. 

• 

"When thou dost lend thy neighbor any manner of loan, 
thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge. Thou 
shalt stand without, and the man to whom thou dost lend 
shall bring forth the pledge without unto thee." — Deut. 
xxiv:io-n. 

There belongs to man, as one of his most sacred 
rights, the right of decision; the right of a free 
choice to which not his reason alone but his 
heart as well stands pledged. Character is not 
the product of arguments but of choices. When 
we give a man a truth or an idea, we offer him 
something which he can accept or refuse as he 
chooses. He has a right to question us concern- 
ing our offering, to examine and re-examine it; 
and we in our turn have a right to speak in favor 
of it and urge its acceptance. The one thing we 
have no right to do is to decide for him, or to 
trespass upon his power of choice. He must de- 
cide ; and a decision, in order to be complete, in- 
volves a state of the will; and that we have no 
right to invade. For love resides in the will; 
and a man's love is his life. Firmly as we may 
believe that what we offer is true and good ; ear- 
nestly as we may advocate its acceptance, it is not 
right to go beyond a reasonable amount of ap- 
peal, and, forcing our way into another's will, 
try to control his choice. 

This principle is strikingly set forth in this ordi- 
214 



THE RIGHT OF DECISION 215 

nance forbidding that one should enter his neigh- 
bor's house to obtain his pledge. When a man 
made a loan to another, he was to stand with- 
out. The man might accept the loan or not as he 
pleased. If he accepted it, it was right that he 
should give some security or pledge. The lender, 
however, must stand outside the borrower's door, 
while the latter was to be free to go into his 
house alone and bring forth his pledge. Every 
time we offer a man an idea, a thought, a truth, 
an opportunity, we are in a sense lending him 
something. We say to him in effect: "Come, 
see if this is not what you need. Take it; ex- 
amine it; try it." 

The pledge is the will's consent; its self-im- 
posed obligation to accept a truth as something 
to be honored and obeyed. Nothing can be more 
important than the making of such a compact. 
For in pledging his affection, a man is virtually 
pledging his life; and obviously this is something 
which should be done in freedom and without un- 
due influence. It should be done in the privacy 
of one's heart, which we may think of as our 
spiritual house or home. We can speak, and 
argue, and make any appeal w r e choose without ; 
but we are divinely forbidden to enter into an- 
other's house and take his pledge. If a pledge is 
given, the man himself must bring it forth. 

For a man's will is the abode of his love; and 
we have no right whether by threats, or undue 
persuasion, or by any occult means to control the 



216 RELIGION AND LIFE 

will's power of decision. A man must learn to 
control his own affections : we cannot, or we 
should not control them for him. Such control is 
both spiritually unlawful and harmful. It is 
right to tell another what we think he needs in 
order to form a true decision. It is right to urge 
upon him the necessity of forming such a decision 
and to appeal to his will by means of his rea- 
son. We may succeed in this or we may fail; 
but whether we succeed or whether we fail, we 
have no right to insist on entering a man's will 
and obtaining his pledge. 

So friend must deal with friend ; however gen- 
erously he may lend him his thought, his advice, 
his influence, his sympathy. The agreement, the 
pledge is the man's own; and if we get it at all, 
he must bring it in his hands out of his own free 
will. 

So the Church must deal with those to whom 
she ministers. Her's the duty to warn against 
sin; to cry, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven 
is at hand!" Her's the mission to reveal the life 
of One who has proved His right to offer Him- 
self as the soul's Guide, Partner and Helper. 
With all the grace and earnestness that the Lord 
may give her, let her do this. But the pledge of 
a better life, if it is given in return, must be 
given while she stands without. 

So parents must deal with their grown-up chil- 
dren. However faithful has been the care, how- 
ever dear and intimate the companionship, how- 



THE RIGHT OF DECISION 217 

ever great love's sacrifice, the time of decision 
comes, and we, fathers and mothers, hoping, 
longing, praying for love's answer to the best 
that we could give, must stand "dear outsiders" 
to a boy's or a girl's heart, waiting for the door 
to be opened and the pledge brought forth. For 
all who are so tempted by love to make every de- 
cision for those whom they have watched and 
reared ; who would shield them from every dan- 
ger, withhold them from temptation, prevent 
them from ever making a wrong decision — for 
such the words are written : "Thou shall not go 
into his house to fetch his pledge. Thou shalt 
stand without." 

The Lord Himself acts within the conditions 
of this law. Even He who formed us in His 
image and likeness will not coerce the human 
heart. Infinite Love built up a world full of 
order and beauty ; nor did it stay its hand until it 
had brought forth beings who could be conscious 
of this Love, and love in return, and thus es- 
tablish a relationship by means of which Love 
could pour forth its blessings. If, then, creation 
grows out of a Love so infinite that nothing shall 
be too great if only it can give of itself to others, 
and awaken in them the consciousness of love; if 
man is the object towards which Love has from 
the beginning advanced, how great must be the 
desire of that Love to come and brush aside every 
least or greatest obstacle and take possession of 
every human heart! And what a sign of the 



218 RELIGION AND LIFE 

sacredness of the heart's liberty it is, that the 
Lord will not do this. "Behold I stand at the 
door and knock ! If any man will hear My voice 
and will open the door, I will come in to him, and 
will sup with him, and he with Me." 

Everything was planned for this friendly and 
grateful acceptance of the Divine by the human : 
the world beneath him to give him the material 
basis of life, and supply him with the means of 
sustenance and support; the arrangement of his 
mental and spiritual faculties, that He might en- 
ter and be known. The end, the purpose of crea- 
tion is here — here in this man, with his thoughts, 
his plans, his cares, his joys. The Lord offers 
him all that he needs; gives him truth, counsel, 
love, and blessings without number. Yet He 
will not coerce him into giving back a single 
pledge. The man need never believe in Him 
if he does not choose to. He need never have 
the slightest affection, nor the slightest gratitude 
for all He has done and is doing. The Lord will 
continue to give him life; He will give him 
opportunity ; and He will give him what is more 
wonderful than all : the freedom to be himself, 
to determine the character of his life, to bring 
forth or to refuse the pledge for which Love 
patiently stands and waits. 

Oh, the gentleness of omnipotence! Do we 
know what it is? Do we think of it? We, with 
our self-satisfied ways, our pride in our opinions, 
our little personal vanities and sense of import- 



THE RIGHT OF DECISION 219 

ance! It calls to mind the cry of the Psalmist: 
"Thy gentleness hath made me great"* He has 
been recalling God's mercies towards him, and 
offering Him his thanksgiving. He has been 
singing of what his God has been to him: "A 
Rock," "a Fortress," "a Deliverer," "a Buckler," 
"the Horn of his salvation," "his high Tower." 
He recalls all that God has done for him, and 
has enabled him to do. He who was in darkness, 
was given a light. He who was helpless, was 
girded with strength. He who was so hemmed 
in that he could not stir, now runs on high places 
as with the feet of a deer. He who could strug- 
gle no longer, can now break a bow, though it 
were of steel. He who was defeated, carries an 
invulnerable shield of salvation. And then, right 
in the midst of his thanksgiving over the glorious 
might of his God, his heart is conscious of an- 
other fact, more wonderful than all : the divine 
forbearance ; the love that was patient with him ; 
the love that forgave him, but never coerced him. 
"Thy right hand hath holden me up," he cries; 
"and Thy gentleness hath made me great." 

Let us not misunderstand this. It does not 
mean mere petting. Omnipotence is gentle in 
the sense that it forbears to deprive man of that 
freedom of choice which God intends him to 
have, in order that he may be a man. His in- 
telligence or his will — the powers of which he 
feels so sure and is so proud — might easily be 
* xviii :35. 



220 RELIGION AND LIFE 

deprived of their power of resistance. It surely 
were easy enough for the Divine Will to break 
our obstinate wills, and take all this perverse, 
foolish power of resistance away. I say this 
would be easy, when yet it would be impossible 
— not because our intelligence and our will are 
so strong, but because His forbearance is so 
great. For this conquest of man by divine force 
would simply turn him into a captive. Man 
never could come to spiritual greatness so. That 
only comes when we have been led to see, and 
then as of ourselves to choose the way that leads 
to eternal life. And this, for many of us, is at- 
tained very gradually, and in large part by means 
of the very mistakes into which we fall through 
insisting upon having our own way. Love for- 
bears ; though Love must suffer when we fall into 
evil and persist in bringing misery upon our- 
selves. But it is not the forbearance of help- 
lessness nor of despair. By that divine art, 
which outgoes all our powers of human contriv- 
ance, by that forbearance which outlasts our per- 
versity or our despair, the mistakes, the evils, 
the circumstances which we thought to be dead 
against us, the failures and humiliations — these 
are made use of as means for inducing us to 
turn voluntarily from the evil to the good, from 
the false to the true. And if, in this process of 
spiritual education, man comes at length to see 
and then to choose the way of life; if now, from 
desire, and not from compulsion, he plants his 



THE RIGHT OF DECISION 221 

feet in that way, then in the midst of his thank- 
fulness let him remember that he has come to 
be what he is through the gentleness of God. 

I know of no appeal which religion makes to 
each one of us which is quite so stirring and 
searching as this. God lives, God creates, God 
reveals His truth, God bows the heavens and 
comes down that man may be free ! And this is 
the wonder fulness of His Providence: that the 
final choice of belief, of spiritual conduct, of 
heaven or of hell, is left with every man, the 
Lord helping him, without hindrance, without 
coercion, in the stillness and seclusion of his 
house. The issue rests with this inner life; this 
private judgment and purpose. The test is in 
the man's feeling when he comes back, so to say, 
into his own house, his will. He comes with 
some fact, some truth, which has been communi- 
cated to him. What will he do with it? What 
will he decide about it when he is alone, when the 
influences of the outer world are put by? 

The principle is a vital one. We need it in our 
relations with others, and in our thought of the 
Lord's relations w r ith us. We are to offer every 
possible spiritual help to others; as He does to 
us. We are to respect the right of the will to 
make its decisions; as He does to us. We are 
to be patient and forbearing; as He is with us. 
Even with those whom we love most, we are to 
stand without and wait, hoping for love's pledge ; 
even as He stands and waits for us. 



3 6.— THE CLOUD THAT TARRIED. 

"And when the cloud tarried long upon the tabernacle 
many days, then the children of Israel kept the charge of 
the Lord, and journeyed not. Whether it were two days, 
or a month, or a year that the cloud tarried upon the 
tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode 
in their tent and journeyed not: but when it was taken up 
they journeyed." — Numbers ix 119-22. 

It must have been so baffling to the children of 
Israel to be frequently halted on their journey! 
They had been brought forth from the land of 
Egypt in haste. At a time when they hardly 
knew whether they could trust the promises of 
Jehovah, they rushed forth from their house of 
bondage. The meal which they took on the last 
night, and which from that time became a memo- 
rial of God's deliverance, was purposely made to 
express the idea of haste; for they were told to 
eat the Passover, staff in hand, their loins girded, 
shoes on their feet — just as if they were a band 
of pilgrims momentarily expecting a signal to 
depart. The time of their emancipation was 
come. The arm of Jehovah was stretched forth. 
Indecision would be fatal. A land of promise 
was before them. There among its hills and val- 
leys they would dwell, and the Lord would make 

222 



THE CLOUD THAT TARRIED 223 

of them a great nation. Come! let them go 
forth in faith and eagerness. The sea would 
block their way; but they would pass through it 
as on dry land. Thirst would come upon them ; 
but water would gush from the rock. Their food 
would fail; but every night the manna would 
descend. Enemies would rush out against them ; 
but the Lord would give them power to scatter 
them. 

How eager at the first they must have been to 
reach their "Promised Land !" How every unex- 
plained delay might cause them to chafe and 
fret! For the delays were many, and they were 
for the most part unexplained. The Lord had 
commanded that they should only journey when 
they saw the pillar of cloud, which hovered over 
the tabernacle, rise up and move before them. 
When that divine signal was given, they should 
then gather up their belongings and follow the 
leadings of the cloud. But if the cloud tarried, 
they should know that they were to stay where 
they were. 

Of these two phenomena, — the moving of the 
cloud and its tarrying, — the latter must have been 
the more difficult to understand. Forced 
marches, even, would more easily reveal God's 
purpose than frequent or prolonged haltings by 
the way. "He is urging us on," they could say, 
as with tired limbs they marched along. "He is 
as eager as we that we should gain the Promised 
Land." But the delays? the days and nights 



224 RELIGION AND LIFE 

when the cloud tarried? days lengthening into 
weeks, and weeks into months, and still no signal 
for departure, and no explanation given? The 
pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night simply 
hung there. And it appears from the sacred 
records that this sometimes lasted for a year. 
The cloud did not move, and they could not move. 
For the command was very explicit : "Whether 
it were two days, or a month, or a year that the 
cloud tarried upon the tabernacle," they were 
only to move when the cloud moved. 

Can we not imagine how baffling this would 
be? After resting for a day or two, and feel- 
ing thoroughly refreshed, can we not hear the 
men saying to each other: "What can this de- 
lay mean? We are so ready to move on!" And 
as, morning by morning, they would come forth 
from their tents and see the cloud still hanging 
motionless above the tabernacle, would there not 
be the temptation to grow restless, to become dis- 
satisfied, to murmur and say, "Why is God so 
slow?" 

The situation so easily translates itself into 
some of our experiences! At heart do we not 
sometimes wish that God would quicken His 
steps a little? Even good causes have to halt 
and wait longer than seems necessary sometimes. 
These delays appear to us a sad loss of time. 
That is because we understand the mystery of the 
way so little. We forget that even in the times 
when we have been stopped, the pillar of cloud 



THE CLOUD THAT TARRIED 225 

and of fire never leaves us. If the spiritual suc- 
cess for which we thought we had a right to look 
does not come, still there is the duty of the day. 
With the Israelite it was the work in the tent. 
With us it is the work in the shop, in the school, 
in the fields, in the home, in the Church : — some 
duty that is close at hand; some duty that may 
have become common in our eyes; some form of 
service which may seem disappointingly meagre 
in its results, and yet which it is manifestly ours 
to do. We cannot always see the cloud moving 
forward. Sometimes all that may be left to us 
is to try to do our duty, and do it well, though 
we cannot see that we are making any real ad- 
vance. The cloud tarries: and we are "so 
strangely wrought in soul and body" that with- 
out these apparent checks and delays we could 
not make the progress, which, at heart, we think 
we are intent on making. 

Sometimes it is a matter of physical health. 
The body breaks down under strain. The spirit 
is willing, but the flesh grows weak. The cloud 
must tarry. 

Sometimes it is lack of means. We had our 
plans. They were made unselfishly. The cause 
was high; but the means for doing what we 
longed to do, were withheld. The cloud tarried, 
and we must abide in our tents. 

Sometimes it is some sorrow of mind or heart 
that almost paralyzes our spirits. It may be im- 
possible at the time to see the meaning of it. We 



226 RELIGION AND LIFE 

pray, we appeal to God's Word; but the heavi- 
ness of our sorrow seems to bind us as with 
weights and fetters. The cloud tarries; and 
whether it be for two days, or a month, or a 
year, we must face that condition. 

These times of delay are not really losses of 
opportunity. They are our times of testing. 
They reveal the really persistent man. They 
make possible that great element of faithfulness. 
They try the sincerity of our desires. It is good 
to march when the cloud is moving; but if it 
tarries, it is well to remember the words of the 
great poet written when blindness was upon him : 

"They also serve who only stand and wait." 

What other men have to suffer, we may have 
to suffer; what other men have to endure, we 
may have to endure. "Exclude a man (says a 
wise teacher) from what others have to bear, and 
you exclude him from his heritage of brother- 
hood." 

The cloud tarries and it must be that the Lord 
intends it as a time of preparation. It is hard 
for us to realize this at the moment, for our 
minds are keenly set upon our disappointments. 
And yet it must be true that all checks upon our 
outward progress are the opportunities for put- 
ting into practise the lessons we have learned. 

We are tried the most sorely along the line of 
our dearest hopes. With high desires within our 
hearts, we cannot help wishing sometimes that 



THE CLOUD THAT TARRIED 227 

the cloud would rise up and sweep right on to 
the goal of our expectations. Better this eager- 
ness than indifference. Better the disappoint- 
ment that the Lord should seem to be so deliber- 
ate than that we should be so apathetic as to feel 
no concern. But better still the confidence that 
the hasting or the resting is wisely determined in 
the Divine Providence ; that when the cloud tar- 
ries over the tabernacle and we become impa- 
tient, it is not that the Lord is slower than we, 
or we more ready and eager than He, but it is 
because there are lessons of faithfulness to be 
learned while we abide in our tents. And when 
the cloud is taken up and the march is ordered, 
it is because the Lord in His wisdom and mercy 
has been able to prepare us to be led a little far- 
ther along the way. 

"And when the cloud tarried long upon the 
tabernacle many days, the children of Israel kept 
the charge of the Lord and journeyed not. 
Whether it were two days, or a month, or a year 
that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, rer 
maining thereon, the children of Israel abode in 
their tents, and journeyed not: and when it was 
taken up, they journeyed." And these words 
mean : Be patient, be faithful in the time of en- 
campment and in the life of the tent: be ready, 
be obedient when the time for marching comes. 
The Lord will waste no moment; for He has 
made the promise : "He will hasten it in His 
time/'' 



37-— THE CROSS AND THE DISCIPLE. 

"Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after Me, 
he cannot be My disciple/' — Luke xiv:27. 

In these words our Lord states the terms of 
Christian discipleship. They are very simple, but 
very searching. Men think and speak of the cross 
as an emblem of some special privation or afflic- 
tion, which, as Christians, they must be willing 
to bear. A man says: "I have met with some 
severe reverse ;" or, "I have lost my health or my 
office ;" or, "I am the victim of a cruel injustice;" 
or, "I have been bereaved of some one who is 
dear to me;" or, "There is some particular trial 
or sorrow that shadows me. It is of such a pri- 
vate nature that I cannot speak of it. But it 
afflicts me. It cuts down my life. People see me 
apparently gay, and they think of my life as 
happy. They do not know the shadow that lies 
across my very soul." 

The average religious person would be very 
likely to say of any one of these forms of trial: 
"This is my cross. It is heavy; but as a Christian 
T ought to bear it. I must not complain. I must 
follow the example of my Saviour and remem- 

228 



THE CROSS AND THE DISCIPLE 229 

ber His words : 'Whosoever doth not take up his 
cross, and come after Me, he cannot be My 
disciple'. " 

One should wish to speak with the tenderest 
consideration of all who think of their trials in 
this way. "My cross! My burden! My dis- 
appointment! My sorrow !" Borne for years, 
perhaps; borne, sometimes, when the weight of 
it seemed unendurable and the heart cried in re- 
bellion: "Why am I thus afflicted ?" borne, per- 
haps, with quiet endurance, and with a humility 
of spirit and of faith which the Lord cannot fail 
to bless. Let us not say: "You err in thinking 
that this is what the Lord means by bearing the 
cross;" for many of these may be true cross- 
bearers and Christ-followers. But we shall need 
to remember that one may bear a burden and 
endure a sorrow, bravely, patiently, but without 
any open or secret allegiance to Christ, as some 
noble Stoic might do, and as many have done. 
And we shall need to reflect that when our Lord 
declares that only he who is bearing his cross 
can be His disciple, He surely cannot mean that 
discipleship is possible only for afflicted men. 
He surely would not say to some youth radiant 
in spirit, or to some man whose hands are over- 
flowing with blessings : "I cannot accept you in 
your spirit of happiness; unless you have some 
sorrow, you cannot be My disciple." In His eyes 
the cross must stand for something much more 
fundamental than tribulation. 



230 RELIGION AND LIFE 

How did He speak of His crucifixion? He 
spoke of it as the laying down of His life. He 
emphasized the fact that it would be a willing 
surrender. When the time came, it would seem 
as if evil men were controlling His life; but in 
reality it would not be so. "I lay it down of My- 
self/' He said, weeks before the day of cruci- 
fixion came. "No man taketh it from Me. . . . 
I have power to lay it down and I have power to 
take it again." This laying down of life was self- 
surrender. It was self-denial carried out to the 
uttermost possibilities of unselfish love. Our finite 
minds may not be able to fathom all that is in- 
volved in our Lord's laying down every last ves- 
tige of any least thought or regard for self. We 
may be incapable of grasping the completeness 
of His self-abnegation expressed so graphically 
by one of His apostles in these words : "Have 
this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus ; 
Who, existing in the form of God, counted not 
the being on an equality with God a thing to be 
grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form 
of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; 
and being found in fashion as a man, He hum- 
bled Himself, becoming obedient even unto 
death, yea, the death of the cross."* 

We may not be able to understand this act of 
self-sacrifice in all the infinity of its love and 
power. But we can understand it in a measure. 
We can understand, because we can see that 

* Phil., ii:5-8. 



THE CROSS AND THE DISCIPLE 231 

there was a complete laying down of all that we 
call "self/' There was a laying down of all de- 
sire to be esteemed, or to be vindicated in men's 
eyes. There was a laying down of every feeling 
of bitterness in being reviled, and of resentment 
in being wronged. And self-sacrifice as it ap- 
plies to us, we surely can understand: the need 
of laying down the self-life, with its loves and 
its lusts; its desire to be "recognized," the will- 
ingness, in a word, to lay down a lower for a 
higher good. The cross of Jesus Christ stands 
for that ; and when our Lord says : "Whosoever 
doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, he 
cannot be My disciple/' He is saying in words 
so much more grave and expressive than any 
that we can frame: "Whosoever is not willing 
to lay down his lower, his self-seeking life, he 
must not expect, he need not hope to be a 
disciple." 

Let us bring the truth before ourselves in the 
plainest way. Self-denial means the ability and 
the willingness "to give up," as we often say: — 
to give up a lower for a higher good; to give 
up a pleasure, to give up a comfort, to give up 
some personal gratification, to give up some ma- 
terial advantage, to give up a probable success if 
any of these things stand in the way of a duty or 
a good which we know to be higher. This need 
of "giving up" may come before us in the form 
of some bereavement or some reversal of for- 
tune. In that case, we may think of the be- 



232 RELIGION AND LIFE 

reavement or the misfortune as the special way 
in which the necessity of bearing our cross has 
come to us. But essentially the cross is the will- 
ingness to give up that which conscience tells us 
should be sacrificed. Our cross does not always 
come to us in the form of a bereavement. Can 
we give up an opinion if it is shown to be wrong? 
Can we give up a prejudice, can we give up an 
enmity if these are based on ill-will? If our 
self-interest is so great, if our pride of opinion is 
so obdurate, if our prejudices are so strong that 
they will not yield, we are refusing to take up 
our cross, and the Lord's words apply to us : 
"Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come 
after Me, he cannot be My disciple." 

"He cannot be My disciple!" And do we re- 
member what this word "disciple" means? It 
means a learner ; one who cares enough for some 
subject to study it at first hand. The disciples 
were men whose belief was strong enough, and 
their interest great enough, to enable them to 
"give up" and become learners of the Divine 
Teacher at first hand. Only so could they really 
learn of Him and of His kingdom. Mdre and 
more they were drawn to Him. More and more 
the truths of His wisdom and the love of His 
life appealed to them. And the more they learned 
from Him, the more they found themselves 
united to Him. He became more than their 
teacher: He was their inspiration, their life. 
They gave up many things, and they became ver- 



THE CROSS AND THE DISCIPLE 233 

itable disciples; a little company whose influ- 
ence for good has never been equalled. 

The same high privilege is held out to us all. 
Would we become disciples in the same vital 
way? The Lord has warned us against an un- 
willingness that would defeat this high purpose. 
He has also stated the terms of discipleship in a 
positive way, and in this form His words have 
the force of an invitation to a golden oppor- 
tunity : 

"If any man will come after Me, let him deny 
himself and take up his cross and follow Me. 
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: 
and whosoever will lose his life for My sake 
shall find it." 



38.— THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE 
TEMPTED. 

I. 

"Ye are they which have continued with Me in My 
temptations." — Luke xxii :2& 

The Brotherhood of the Tempted! There is 
such a Brotherhood. It is the largest of any in 
all the world. It has its orders or degrees, one 
within another. No soldiers who have fought 
side by side should feel a more essential and ten- 
der comradeship than the members of this Broth- 
erhood. The Head of the order is One of Whom 
it has been written : "He hath been in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin."* This 
Order or Brotherhood of the Tempted was an- 
nounced in these words : "Ye are they which have 
continued with Me in My temptations. ,, That, 
so to say, is its spiritual act of incorporation. 
That is the charter under which it lives. It con- 
tains a very strange provision — a provision to be 
found nowhere else in any known association 
among men : "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as 
My Father hath appointed unto Me ; that ye may 
eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and 

* Heb. iv:i5. 

234 



BROTHERHOOD OF THE TEMPTED 235 

sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of 
Israel." By this divine act of incorporation, the 
humblest member of this Brotherhood, if he bears 
himself worthily, if he holds closely to the Head 
of the Order, is to come into the exercise of 
rights and privileges which are truly amazing. 
Only through being one of the tempted can he re- 
ceive the appointment to a kingdom, the right to 
a place at His table in His kingdom, and a judge- 
ship over large spiritual interests. 

Is there not something very beautiful about all 
this? "Ye are they which have continued with 
Me in My temptations." It is such an unexpected 
bond of association! If the Lord had said: "Ye 
are they which have been with Me on My jour- 
neys," or, "Ye are they which have received My 
doctrines;" or, "Ye are they which have left all 
and followed Me" — no one would be surprised. 
But temptation as a bond of fellowship, opening 
up into privileges and powers so strange that we 
cannot think of them as literal — that surely calls 
for our earnest attention. 

This word "temptation" is most expressive. 
It awakens, or should awaken in us a fellow-feel- 
ing such as no other word can arouse. We fol- 
low different pursuits and professions. The cir- 
cumstances of our lives are not the sam.. We 
may differ in opinions, in tastes, in temperament, 
in politics, in occupation, in Churchmanship, in 
nationality. We may often be vexed with each 
other through differences. We may be made en- 



236 RELIGION AND LIFE 

vious or contemptuous through inequalities. But 
temptation! How that does level things! How 
insensibly it puts about us the bonds of a uni- 
versal fellowship! How real those bonds are! 
Race, lineage, education, affluence, poverty, social 
position — these things cease to bristle with their 
customary importance when we really bring 
ourselves to listen to these sympathetic words of 
our Lord: "Ye are they which have continued 
with Me in My temptations/' 

We should not be satisfied to think of so great 
a subject in a merely general w r ay. It is true that 
we are all tempted ; but we are not tempted alike. 
Some temptations are very much more interior 
than others. In general there are four stages or 
degrees of temptation. Reverting to our open- 
ing thought of a Brotherhood, we may liken these 
four stages to four Orders into which men may 
be successively initiated. 

1. The first we will call The Order of Enroll- 
ment. It comprises all who reach a point in life 
when they declare themselves in favor of the Lord 
and His kingdom. They virtually say : "This life 
of self-gratification and of the world, which I 
have been living, is unworthy. I am capable of 
something better. I long for something better. 
I will live the Christian life/' A man does not 
come to this determination without struggle. He 
will find that first, simple, manly resolution as- 
sailed again and again. More than once he will 
find himself wavering, and questioning whether 



BROTHERHOOD OF THE TEMPTED 237 

after all such an attitude is worth while. Dur- 
ing this first period, the temptations are natural, 
rather than spiritual. Whatever the man suffers 
as to his natural life, — be it in the form of 
illness, misfortunes, persecutions, undeserved 
punishments and the like, — these he calls "temp- 
tations." With these he contends. They 
fill his mind with pains, griefs, disappoint- 
ments which seem to afflict his soul. In the 
midst of these he tries to preserve his simple reso- 
lution to seek the Kingdom of God and His 
righteousness. 

2. The second order w r e will call The Order of 
Repentance. This carries us farther into the 
tempted life. It is more than enrollment. It is 
more than maintaining a state of high resolve. 
It is the actual putting away of evil. It is taking 
the truths of the letter of God's Word, as a 
soldier would take his weapons, and fighting 
against evils of life. How hard this is to do, 
who does not know ? Here is where we close in 
with the enemy. Here is where we get wounds 
and scars. Here is where we taste alternately 
the bitterness of defeat and the satisfaction of 
victory. One of the temptations characteristic of 
this experience is the rising up in the memory of 
evil deeds which one has committed, which seem 
to mock and accuse him and make his efforts at 
self-conquest seem hopeless. There they stand, 
incited by evil spirits, pointing their mocking, 
condemning fingers. 



238 RELIGION AND LIFE 

3. There is another order of the tempted which 
we will call The Order of Reformation. Only 
those come into this order who have developed a 
genuine love of what is spiritually true. By this 
we mean that the truth learned, believed, ac- 
knowledged, appealed to for direction and sup- 
port, has become infinitely precious. The soul 
loves it. It would not be or do without it. Men 
do love spiritual truth in this way. The truth of 
Jesus Christ, the truths of the Gospel, the Word 
of God, the teachings of the Church, — these come 
to be intensely real and vital to a regenerating 
man. When these are assailed, and an influx of 
evil from infernal sources comes pouring in, 
flooding the mind with dark and vain imaginings, 
then there is experienced a very deep and dis- 
tressing fear that the truth is not only too great 
for us, but that it will suffer at our hands. We 
fear its loss. We fear our own faithlessness. 
We feel condemned. 

4. The innermost order of the tempted is The 
Order of Regeneration. Here the assault is 
made upon the good, which, little by little, 
through many a temptation — combat, a man 
comes to prize as the most sacred element in his 
life. He may not always be true to it, but at 
least he has come to feel how precious it is. 
More and more he makes it the prayer of his life 
that he may be true to this good which the Lord 
has made him capable of recognizing and loving; 
not doubting it, nor forsaking it; and when a 



BROTHERHOOD OF THE TEMPTED 239 

flux of evil sweeps in unbidden and assails that, 
when that seems mocked, and the possibility of 
its proving unreal, or of passing away fills the 
mind with a nameless dread and misery, then 
temptation in its subtlest and deepest form has 
come upon us, and for a time may induce states 
of despair. 

Through these stages or degrees of tempta- 
tion our Lord passed; quickly, we are assured, 
through the grosser and simpler forms, less 
quickly through those which are more interior. 
And He hails all who enter this Brotherhood of 
the Tempted and bids them know that if they 
bear themselves nobly, great privileges will be 
theirs. If the fact of temptation brings a feel- 
ing of discouragement, the Lord seems to say, 
"Remember, it is honorable." If we falter at its 
long continuance, the Lord seems to say: "The 
greater the honor to bear one's self worthily." 
If we shrink from the thought that as tempta- 
tions progress they become more interior, the 
Head of the Order seems to say : "The surer the 
sign that the privileges of life to which they lead 
are great beyond compare." 

Nor should it ever be forgotten that to the 
tempted, help is always possible — help from the 
angels of heaven, help from the Lord of whom it 
is written : "For in that He Himself hath suf- 
fered being tempted, He is able to succor them 
that are tempted." 

The tempted life! Surely it has its stirring 



240 RELIGION AND LIFE 

side. In the Christian life no room is left for 
indifference or neutrality. A part must be taken. 
Shall we not wish to be as 

"One who never turned his back, but marched breast 

forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 

triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better 
Sleep to wake." * 



* Robert Browning's Epilogue. 



39 .— THE HEROISM OF THE BROTHER- 
HOOD. 

II. 

"Ye are they which have continued with Me in My 
temptations." — Luke xxii :28. 

In order to be a true member of "The Brother- 
hood of the Tempted" one needs the element of 
heroism. "Temptations are the battles of regen- 
eration." Tempted men are men under fire. Men 
who weakly yield in temptation are poor-spirited 
men. They are soldiers with faint hearts who 
throw down their arms and surrender, or who 
run away. Men who struggle hard in tempta- 
tion are men, who, if sometimes worsted, have at 
least the soldier-element. Everywhere in the 
Bible, temptation is represented in this way. It 
is warfare; warfare with an active, persistent, 
dangerous foe. It is a wrestle in the darkness. 
It is standing up with sword, and shield, and 
buckler and fighting a good fight. That is why 
the Bible has accounts of so many wars with so 
many different kinds of enemies — enemies on the 
mountain, enemies on the plain, enemies by the 
sea, enemies in the wilderness, enemies in the very 

241 



242 RELIGION AND LIFE 

heart of the Promised Land, enemies who boldly 
block up the path, enemies who attack from the 
rear and smite the feeble, the weary, the sick; 
Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Gir- 
gashites, Amorites, Jebusites, Amalakites, Am- 
monites, and Moabites. They are the impersona- 
tions of various forms of falsity and evil which 
make war upon the souls of men. That is why 
the Old Testament, with a seemingly cruel spirit, 
declares that they and all things belonging to 
them shall be put to the sword. That is why the 
Psalms utter such dire imprecations upon our 
enemies. That is why the cry goes up : "Blessed 
be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my 
hands to war, and my fingers to fight !" That is 
why the Ark containing the tables of the Law 
was always to be carried into battle on the 
shoulders of the priests, that we might have the 
truth taught by this object-lesson, that in these 
battles of regeneration the presence of the Lord 
is essential to victory. That is why the Lord, 
foreshadowed as our Redeemer, is represented as 
One who engages in a fearful struggle. He is 
as the mighty Hero coming out of Edom, the 
enemy's country, with garments spattered with 
blood, but with the bearing of a Conqueror. That 
is why the apostle to the gentiles sends this stir- 
ring message to the Ephesians : "We wrestle not 
against flesh and blood, but against principalities, 
against powers, against the rulers of the dark- 
ness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in 



HEROISM OF THE BROTHERHOOD 243 

high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole 
armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand 
in the evil day; and having done all, to stand." 

How strange it all is, this everlasting struggle 
which has been waging for ages, and which is 
one of the sure marks of a true man! We can- 
not keep ourselves clear of it. We cannot say : 
"I will not be tempted. I will just pursue my 
way, and no influence of evil shall assail me." 
The very power to be tempted, to be so resolved 
on a true course of life, to honor a truth so 
deeply, to love some form of spiritual good so in- 
tensely, that the possibility of their loss fills us 
with dismay and inward grief — that is one of the 
signs of a regenerating manhood. Alas, for the 
untempted man! the man who forbids himself 
to ask deep questions; who shuts the door to 
every angel-messenger that would bid him go 
forth and live a noble life; who is afraid to be 
serious; who is afraid to give his mind and his 
heart to some great cause ; who only dares to be 
flippant and cynical, and keep his little shallow 
life comfortable and bright! There is very little 
in such a man to be tempted. The untempted 
character of his days is his disgrace. He does 
not know, he does not care to know what is 
meant by the words : "Ye are they which have 
continued with Me in My temptations." 

And yet these very persons often assume to 
judge their fellowmen, sneer at their inconsisten- 
cies, point at their failures, and cavil at their 



244 RELIGION AND LIFE 

struggling, tempted lives. To such, what could 
one wish to say but this: "Look up, O triflers 
in the world, and see the truth as it is in Jesus 
Christ ! To be tempted is not wicked ; it is not 
shameful; it is not unworthy. It is the lot, and 
in one view, it is the glory of a true man's life/' 

For, put in the simplest form, temptation is 
the struggle which the natural and the spiritual 
must for a time wage with each other. The 
natural is bound at first to dominate the spiritual. 
For a time it seems to have the advantage ; for it 
comes into the power of its life more quickly and 
more fully, and all its interests and importunities 
seem more pressing and more real. But the 
spiritual, maturing slowly, acquiring truths of 
eternal life, forming ideals, learning gradually 
to love them, feels itself called to stand up for 
them, to defend them against assaults from with- 
out and from within, and to make them supreme. 
This requires spiritual fortitude. It leads in- 
evitably to struggles of a very real and very vital 
character; struggles which sometimes end in de- 
feat and leave deep scars; struggles, also, which 
issue into wonderful victories through the power 
of Him who ranged His tempted life alongside 
of ours, saying: "Ye are they which have con- 
tinued with Me in My temptations. " 

For it is a true and beautiful teaching that 
the Lord is never so really near as when we are 
being tempted. It touched Him that His dis- 
ciples, doing their humble best, continued with 



HEROISM OF THE BROTHERHOOD 245 

Him through the tempted days of His ministry, 
even though they knew so little of the infinite 
struggle that was going on within Him as day by 
day He laid down His life for man's sake. He 
seems to have loved to think of them as partners 
in that struggle. And we, should we not feel the 
same towards Him? Should it not draw us 
nearer to Him? 

The fact of temptation should also influence 
our thought of each other. The man or the 
woman with whom we shall converse to-day, or 
with whom we shall do business — kinsman, 
friend, stranger, — each in his or her degree is 
tempted. Of nothing may we be more sure than 
that. Each has his or her remembrance of bat- 
tles fought, defeats sustained, victories won on 
some of the many strange fields of temptation. 
Each one is aware that the struggle is not over; 
and one in one spirit, another in another will 
kneel hoping, praying that they may not be over- 
come by the temptations which they feel press- 
ing in upon them. The stranger w T ho may come 
and go unnoticed, the acquaintance in whom we 
feel but a slight interest, the person who is not 
to our taste, whom we criticise, and against whom 
we may harbor some unfriendly thought — how 
little we know of the inner tragedies of their 
lives; how little we may realize that if we could 
look into their souls we would recognize that the 
same elemental struggle is going on, perhaps with 
an intensity, perhaps against odds of heredity and 



246 RELIGION AND LIFE 

environment and imperfect knowledge, which 
would make our struggles seem far less heroic, 
and cause us to be very humble. 

"Judge not the workings of his brain, 

And of his heart thou canst not see; 
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain, 

In God's pure light may only be 
A scar brought from some well-won field, 
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield. 

The look, the air that frets thy sight, 

May be a token that below, 
The soul has closed in deadly fight 

With some infernal, fiery foe, 
Whose glance would scorch thy smiling grace, 
And cast thee shuddering on thy face." * 



*Adelaide Procter. 



40.— THE HUSHED VOICE. 

". . . And after the fire a still small voice." — I Kings 
xix:i2. 

These words came at the close of Elijah's expe- 
rience on Mt. Horeb. One moment before there 
had been confusion and distress, the mountain 
swept with wind, shaken by earthquake, lighted 
up with fire; now there was a profound peace. 
The raging of the storm had been a true picture 
of the tumultuous nature of this hunted, baffled, 
persecuted prophet; but now there was a great 
calm. He whose laugh had rung out on Mt. 
Carmel as the priests and prophets of Baal tried 
in vain to call down the fire from heaven upon 
their altar, but who had been driven into the 
wilderness by the hate of Jezebel, and cast him- 
self under a juniper tree begging God to end the 
heart-ache and this unequal struggle, — how he 
must have inwardly raged and burned, as he 
crept into a cave at Horeb! 

Somewhere here Moses had struck the rock 
whence the waters gushed out for the thirsty 
and complaining host. Here the people had 
stood listening to the giving of the Law from 
the heights of Sinai. And here was he, God's 

247 



248 RELIGION AND LIFE 

prophet, who had "been very jealous for the 
Lord of hosts," driven like any poor animal to 
his lair! "And a great and strong wind rent 
the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks; 
and after the wind an earthquake ; and after the 
earthquake a fire." With what grim satisfaction, 
— so we may imagine — did the prophet in his 
cave look out upon all this raging of the ele- 
ments! They swept, and rent, and shook, and 
burned the mountain, and God did not stop them. 
And then, and then the silence fell ! All this out- 
ward noise and fury passed away. The earth 
was still. And to this lonely heart there came 
a voice so hushed, so gentle it seemed no more 
than a whisper. But the prophet arose ; he went 
forth from the cave, for he knew that the Lord 
was nigh. And in the peaceful ending of this 
experience, as we read of it out of our Bible 
to-day, there comes a feeling of assurance, a 
sense of satisfaction. "And after the fire a still 
small voice." A thousand, thousand times the 
comfort of that hushed voice has been felt. Calm 
following storm; the peace which passeth all 
understanding following struggle ; the evil forces 
in a man's nature raging and burning, and then 
this mysteriously quiet, profound feeling of se- 
curity and contentment which comes into a brave 
man's heart when he has put the evil by, and 
something tells him that the Lord is near. 

"He makcth the storm a calm." 



THE HUSHED VOICE 249 

So the Psalm sings its song of thanksgiving 
that struggle and vexation of spirit may end in 
perfect peace. "And He arose and rebuked the 
winds and the sea. And there was a great calm." 
It is the same assurance, coming to us out of 
our New Testament, that there is a power greater 
than that of storm or tempest. If it seems help- 
less, it is only for a time. When the right mo- 
ment comes and the Lord arises, the storm stops. 
Then there is something mightier than the 
storm : there is "a great calm." And he is slow 
of heart indeed who will not feel that these are 
all different ways in which the Lord is assuring 
men who are struggling for the right, that they 
do not struggle in vain, and that somehow, some- 
where there comes at last a deep peace, a pro- 
found satisfaction, which makes the struggle 
worth while. 

The Bible comes to us with this hopeful, 
wholesome message bidding us believe that there 
is a vast quiet strength, not hurling rocks, not 
shaking mountains, not blasting the wicked with 
consuming fire, but working ceaselessly until in 
some glad hour the great good may come, the 
blessing may be given. 

Without some such abiding faith as this, men 
are apt to grow discouraged in struggle, or bit- 
ter in spirit, or turn wearily away from all high 
endeavors. But with this faith there is always 
a power in reserve, which keeps them true, and 
striving for some good end. It is written of the 



2 so RELIGION AND LIFE 

Son of Man in that strange contest in the wilder- 
ness, that when the temptation was ended and 
the spirit of evil was departed, then behold, "an- 
gels came and ministered unto Him." And 
when at the other end of His ministry He had 
thrice prayed in an agony of spirit, "Not my 
will but Thine be done/' it is again declared that 
"an angel appeared strengthening Him." Surely, 
it is the sign that out of temptation and struggle 
endured, the great, calm, irresistible strength 
issues at last. After wind, earthquake and fire 
there is a hushed voice that speaks. 

The deepest forces are ever the quiet forces. 
The peace for which the Lord prepares the soul 
that loves Him is never the peace of inaction, but 
of perfect and harmonious power. For peace, it 
has been well said, "is the joy of life when it is 
doing its best, without strain, without friction, 
without disturbance." Man at his best, and not 
his poorest, following the course of his best 
thoughts, living out his best desires, fulfilling his 
highest ideals — and doing all this without pain- 
ful effort or self-compulsion, but naturally, spon- 
taneously, with a great joy in his heart. After 
wind, and earthquake and fire have done their 
work, then the completer strength, the pro- 
founder satisfaction, the deeper calm. Then 
the hushed voice speaks. Then it is good to feel 
that the struggle has not been in vain. We need 
not have given way quite so completely. We 
might have trusted a little more fully. We 



THE HUSHED VOICE 251 

"mourned in our complaint and made a noise," 
more than was necessary. But the voice that re- 
called us to ourselves and brought us a feeling 
of assurance was not a voice of accusation. 
Rather it was a voice that was toned down until 
it seemed the merest whisper. But a whisper is 
often expressive of the deepest love. 



4i.— THE ALTARS AND THE BIRDS. 

"Yea, the sparrow hath found her house and the swallow 
a nest for herself, where she may lay her young. Even 
Thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God." — 
Ps. lxxxiv 13. 

The Psalm from which this verse is taken is 
set in a deeply spiritual key. It expresses the 
soul's longing for God and His sanctuary. It 
was probably written during the exile; and the 
unquenchable desire of the Jewish captives in 
Babylon for their temple and their home-land 
breaks forth in a song that tells how home-sick 
the soul of a man may be. Though they have 
been removed far away to a land of captivity, the 
white temple crowning Mt. Moriah seems to rise 
before them, and they are heard to sigh : 

"How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. My 
soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord ; 
my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God." 

No civilization could be so splendid, no dis- 
tance could be so great, that their thoughts would 
not take wings and fly straight to the great altars 
of their temple. It is this turning of their 
thoughts to the altars at Jerusalem, with the 
same sure instinct that a bird flies to its nest, 

252 



THE ALTARS AND THE BIRDS 253 

that is imaged so beautifully in the verse which 
follows : 

"Yea, the sparrow hath found her house, 

And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her 

young, 
Even Thine altars, O Lord of hosts, 
My King and my God." 

Is this imagery true? May it be overdrawn? 
Is it as essential to our true welfare that our 
thoughts should rest in God's altars, as that birds 
should have their nests? 

This Psalm does not hesitate to assert the es- 
sential need of these altars at Jerusalem. For 
Jerusalem, in the beautiful picture-language 
of the Bible, is where one first learns about 
God ; it may be in the sanctuary ; it may be at a 
mother's knee. It is where one's first prayer, 
though spoken with stammering lips, goes 
straight to the heart of the dear Lord, who has 
put the seal of His infinite love upon child-life. 
It rs where the sign of baptism should be placed 
upon one's brow. It is where, in remembrance 
of Him who went up to His first Passover, and 
who loved youth with an infinite love, one should 
come up to his first communion. Jerusalem! 
where the spiritual life begins; where our spirit- 
ual ideals are gained and the first steps toward 
heaven are taken ! 

The altars in Jerusalem stand for the definite 
conceptions which one forms of God as the 
source of all wisdom and love, to whom the 



254 RELIGION AND LIFE 

rightly ordered mind should wish to pay hom- 
age, saying, with the Psalmist : "I will go unto 
the altar of God, unto God the gladness of my 
joy." And the plea which our text makes is 
that the spirit of man should not be satisfied 
until its thoughts, even the simplest and the low- 
liest, can rest with happy certainty in what is 
eternal and divine. 

Is this a mental attitude which is to be 
expected of ordinary people, of hard-working 
people, of young people? Here is a pupil going 
back to his school; here is a youth entering col- 
lege; here is a young man starting out upon 
some professional or business career. Do these 
need these altars of the Lord of hosts? Can 
they make any real use of them? There are les- 
sons to be learned, recitations to be made, lec- 
tures to be attended, books to be read, routine 
duties to be faithfully performed, plenty of hard 
work to be attended to. 

How familiar it all sounds, these claims of 
the engrossing character of the life which man 
is called upon to live in these days! Life moves 
so swiftly! The effort required merely to "keep 
up" with the current knowledge of the world — 
its books, its discoveries, its happenings — is so 
great ! There is so much pressure, and stir, and 
anxiety! What chance is there for the altars 
of God? Sunday comes, and there are many 
who declare they are too weary in mind and 
body to unite with their brethren in the services 



THE ALTARS AND THE BIRDS 255 

of the Church. They say they simply must take 
the time for rest, or they cannot keep up with 
the race. 

The Word of God makes its plea for the altars, 
knowing the pressure and anxiety under which 
so many live. But in truth, to have these altars 
is not so much a question of time and strength 
as it is of the right ordering of our minds and 
the true purposing of our wills. 

Suppose you are a student. You wish to get 
the most out of your school or your college. 
That means that you wish to acquire knowledge, 
to become intelligent, to get mental strength, and 
poise, and breadth; to get firmness and fineness 
of character. How shall the student get the most 
and not the least out of all this that he hopes for? 
Will he do it, if, in a spirit of indifference or 
perverseness, he tries to hide from God among 
his books? It is not enough to cry, "The world 
is beautiful; education is a blessing; life is full 
of opportunity!" The world is beautiful; but 
Who made it, and whence does it get its beauty ? 
Education is a blessing — but Who formed the hu- 
man mind, and by Whose life does it get its power 
to grow? Life is full of opportunity — but 
through Whom is it that "We live and move and 
have our being?" You cannot do without the 
altars, oh, student! You cannot get the final 
answer to the questions you are bound to ask, 
if you are in fact and not simply in name a 
truth-seeker, unless you get back to the Divine. 



256 RELIGION AND LIFE 

You cannot understand your own life — its origin, 
its destiny — you cannot get the highest motive- 
power for the cultivation of your mind, unless 
you go to the source of all truth and of power. 
Alas for you, if, with all this education, your 
soul sends up no cry for the living God! Alas 
for you, if, sending forth that cry, you have no 
altars where your thoughts may lodge and feel 
at rest ! The schools can promise you education ; 
they can give you the needed mental drill; they 
can send you out into the world with a diploma 
or degree; but the secret of strength, righteous- 
ness and joy is not yours until your soul has in 
thought stood face to face with your Saviour- 
Lord, and owned His right to say to you: "I am 
the Way, the Truth, and the Life." 

This principle is equally true when applied to 
the life of daily work. No man has got the most 
out of his work, and no man has put the most 
into it, who has no conviction as to his relations 
to his God. Work means more to a man, and 
he enters into it with higher motives, if the Lord 
is his final judge as to what is fair and reason- 
able, and he lives in the spirit of helpfulness in- 
spired by Him who said : "I am among you as 
One that serveth." 

Rightly the Psalm praises the altars where the 
birds make their nests; and in the verses which 
follow our text it points out the blessings which 
these altars will surely bring. 

i. Thanksgiving. — "Blessed are they that 



THE ALTARS AND THE BIRDS 257 

dwell in Thy house; they will be still praising 
Thee/' We sometimes hear persons speak about 
"thanking their stars" for this or that, as if they 
were the favored objects of some magical power 
that hides within the earth. Sometimes one 
hears people congratulating themselves on their 
prudence and sagacity. But they who have these 
altars, and whose thoughts rest in them, will 
"praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His 
wonderful w T orks to the children of men." It is 
a noble emotion. It keeps man at his best; pre- 
vents him from being puffed up with a sense of 
his own wisdom and importance, at the same 
time that it puts gladness into his heart. 

2. From the altars comes strength : "Blessed 
is the man whose strength is in Thee" — and 
virtue — "in whose heart are Thy ways." Here 
are divine sources of power and true-heartedness, 
open to him whose thoughts under any situation 
can turn as a sure and final refuge to the altars 
of the Lord of hosts. 

3. From the altars comes spiritual support 
in seasons of trial, making it possible for experi- 
ences which seem hard at the time to become the 
means of heavenly blessing. Thus it is that 
"passing through the valley of Baca they make 
it a well : the rain also filleth the pools." 

4. From the altars comes the power of an 
endless progression in character. "They go 
from strength to strength : everyone of them in 
Zion appeareth before God." 



258 RELIGION AND LIFE 

So this Psalm sings its song of rejoicing for 
those who have the high altars and who seek the 
living God as the source of all true power, mean- 
ing, and beauty in life. So it bids us take heart 
and believe that the altars will help us ; that they 
will become the means of our deepest confidence 
and strength; that whether we outwardly suc- 
ceed or whether we fail, the Lord will give to the 
soul that trusts Him and lives true a certain in- 
ward grace and glory, and no good thing that is 
essential to its highest welfare will He withhold. 
Then let us join in the cry of thanksgiving with 
which this Psalm closes : "O Lord of hosts, 
blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee!" 



42.— MIRACULOUS SIGNS OF POWER. 

"These signs shall accompany them that believe: In My 
name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new 
tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any 
deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands 
on the sick, and they shall recover." — Mark xvi: 17-18. 

In picture-language our Lord is describing the 
power of a living faith in Him. Any one who 
really believes, — and that must mean believe in 
Him heart and soul, in mind and in act — what 
is it possible for such a man to do ? What power 
is to come into his life? Will it simply bring 
him a sense of assurance, a feeling that he is 
saved ? Listen : he is to cast out devils ; he is to 
speak with a new tongue ; he is to be able to take 
up serpents; if he drinks poison it shall not hurt 
him; and when he lays his hands on the sick, 
they shall recover. 

Oh, w T onderful life of power, of protection, of 
blessing! No delicate tracery of a man of sen- 
timental goodness. No pale, emaciated recluse. 
No! A man of power! A man whose life is 
fraught with danger, but a man of kindness, too. 

Let us try to understand the things which 
such a man may do. 

I. The Gospel never hesitates to characterize 

259 



260 RELIGION AND LIFE 

wilful evil as it really is. It never tries to win 
men by speaking of it under its breath, or by 
treating it in any weak, sentimental way. It 
always looks upon and speaks of it as a wicked, 
active principle. It personifies it under two 
names, "Satan" and the "Devil". The Devil 
stands for that power of evil which tries to cor- 
rupt our hearts, to enflame them with hatred, to 
fill them with the lusts of pleasure, the sordid 
love of avarice, that diabolical love of dominion 
over others. These are no fanciful, pallid states 
of feeling. They are things that destroy; — de- 
stroy happiness, destroy character. They are 
things that burn, sometimes into our flesh, some- 
times in our heart, tempting us to be lustful, ava- 
ricious, domineering, filled with pride and love 
of self. It is something which shadows us, some- 
thing that seems ready at any time to prompt a 
wrong desire. 

And then the great Conqueror over evil says : 
"In My name they shall cast out devils/' The 
man who really believes in the Lord, the man 
who is trying with all his might to live by His 
truths, that man is to receive this wonderful 
power: he is to be able to cast out devils; he is 
to be able to turn back these evil loves, he is to 
be able to restrain his anger, he is to be able to 
free himself from those mean, jealous feelings 
that would prevent him from acting nobly and 
generously. 

"Devils!" I suppose this evil element is put 



MIRACULOUS SIGNS OF POWER 261 

in the plural form because — well, because it 
breaks out so often and in so many ways. Its 
name is "legion;" for it is not ashamed to say: 
"We are many." Sometimes these evil desires 
gain possession of us, and we are ashamed. But 
blessed be the power which enables a man, in 
spite of occasional lapses on his part, to cast out 
devils, both in himself, and, through the divine 
grace, out of others. 

2. If a man has some success in thus casting 
out the spirit of evil, his mind begins to think 
new thoughts; he looks at life in new and more 
spiritual ways; he learns to interpret his expe- 
riences with a new and deeper understanding; 
he begins to spell out, as it were, little by little, 
the inner messages of God's Word and of His 
Providence. It is a great thing thus to learn to 
speak with a new tongue ! The same things are 
taking place, perhaps; the same work, the same 
association with friends, the same occasional vis- 
itations of sickness, disappointment, the passing 
away of those who are dear to us. The same 
things! But if there is growth in the Christian 
life, it becomes possible to speak of them in a 
new way: — a little less complainingly and bit- 
terly, a little more trustfully. It is a blessed 
thing, too, to learn to speak more charitably of 
others; and instead of condemning quickly, to 
say a kindly word. 

All this is like a new language. I suppose we 
must not expect to be able to speak it fluently all 



262 RELIGION AND LIFE 

at once. But it is a blessed thing to learn to 
speak it, however gradually, and to help others 
do the same. 

3. The senses of the body are in constant touch 
with the outer world. This corporeal plane is 
quick, sinuous, circumspect, — "wise as serpents," 
but not "harmless as doves." For these loves 
of the body are seductive. They have a strange 
power over our minds. They have such a way 
of getting our attention and holding it, keeping 
our thoughts, drawing our desires, like a serpent 
charming its prey. "What shall we eat? What 
shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be 
clothed?" It is so easy to let these things get a 
controlling power over us; to think and to care 
for them as though they were the chief concerns 
in life; to worry about them until they consume 
our strength; and to be made miserable if they 
are not just as we would have them, — or as oth- 
ers are having them ! It is so easy, too, to be in- 
jured by much luxury and the love of it, and to 
become more and more dependent upon it. 

If one really grows in the Christian life there 
should come a power from above that will break 
this enchantment of the senses. We ought not 
only to gain control over these things, but ele- 
vate them. And that is always done by judging 
and treating them from the ground of use. 
"They shall take up serpents." Blessed power 
of control of the spirit over the things which 
appeal to our corporeal life! 



MIRACULOUS SIGNS OF POWER 263 

4. And then there is the promise to be able to 
drink poison and not be harmed by it. 

There are active minds which have a strong 
intellectual thirst. They "drink in" with great 
eagerness knowledges of all kinds, wherever they 
can find them. In doing this one often imbibes 
serious errors. In reading a book, for example, 
one may take in things that are utterly false. If 
one's life is evil these things act like poison. They 
spread a power of death over vital truths and 
interests in the mind. For evil lays hold of 
falsity by which to justify itself, and to act out 
its desires. There is no one but has some errors 
in his mind; some of them may be grave errors 
of understanding. Furthermore, it is to be ex- 
pected that we shall all imbibe more errors in the 
course of our life; especially if we are mentally 
active. Some of them may be grievous errors. 
But we have the encouragement of this promise 
of the Lord : "If they drink any deadly thing it 
shall not hurt them." And the spiritual reason 
for this is, if a man receives falsity and unites it 
with evil, it poisons him, mentally and morally; 
but if a man is earnestly trying to live the Chris- 
tian life; if he looks to the Lord; if he really 
wishes to know the truth that he may obey it; 
then the erroneous and even false ideas which he 
may imbibe will not harm him. Sometimes 
quickly, sometimes slowly, they will be removed 
by further instruction. "If they drink any deadly 
thing it will not harm them." 



264 RELIGION AND LIFE 

5. There is one promise more — in some re- 
spects, the most beautiful of them all: — "They 
shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall re- 
cover." We may think of this as the wholesome 
renewing power which a true Christian faith 
should exert upon many things in us that get 
feeble and sick. We have states of discourage- 
ment; our feelings get "injured;" we get into a 
feverish condition over various perplexities and 
difficulties. A genuinely earnest Christian faith 
should certainly have the power to lay strong, 
healing hands on all these things. The weak 
conditions come; but so will the power of re- 
newal. For the Christian life should not be a 
depressed, run-down, sickly life, but a life that 
is being constantly renewed; renewed from sor- 
row, renewed when we have proved weak; re- 
newed from injuries, imaginary or real, which we 
have received from others. 

And then it is good to think that this promise 
holds out the assurance that one who is living a 
true Christian life will always exert a strong, 
encouraging, wholesome, reviving influence upon 
others. This is such a blessed power ! It is such 
a wonderful privilege ! — to shed an influence that 
is radiant and not gloomy, reassuring and not 
depressing, charitable and not cynical, uplifting 
and not debasing! To come, to go, to do your 
part, to speak your message and make others feel 
that you have been a help, you have renewed their 
strength ! Blessed power ! the sum it would seem, 



MIRACULOUS SIGNS OF POWER 265 

of all these others promised to the Lord's true 
followers. 

"And these signs shall accompany them that 
believe : In My name shall they cast out devils ; 
they shall speak with new tongues; they shall 
take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly 
thing it shall not hurt them; and they shall lay 
hands on the sick and they shall recover/' 



43— SPIRITUAL SIGHT. 

"The lamp of thy body is the eye." — Luke xi 134. 

If, when we have examined the eye, and gained 
even a most general idea of its intricate, delicate 
structure, we exclaim : "How wonderful are all 
these lenses, and membranes, and humors, by 
which waves of light are sifted, and visual im- 
ages of things in nature formed !" why should 
we not be as quick to exclaim, "How wonderful 
is this God-given faculty of human intelligence 
to which it corresponds?'' How wonderful for 
the mind to be able to form true mental images, 
and to be able to say of truths, and forms of 
goodness, "I see them !" It is a noble possession. 
It is as safely guarded, it is as delicately enfolded 
so that it can easily be turned, now to this object 
of thought, now to that; it is enabled by as won- 
derful processes of concentration, and elimina- 
tion, to bring to our attention some one truth 
and hold it there quietly and steadily in all its 
sensitive beauty, while the mind can see it on all 
its sides and in all its delicate "shades of mean- 
ing," as we say, — these provisions and uses of the 
intelligence are as obvious and certainly they are 
as marvellous as the things which the physiolo- 

266 



SPIRITUAL SIGHT 267 

gist points to as being true of the eyes of the 
body. 

The Bible, if I read it aright, would have us 
recognize this correspondence ; appeals to it ; says 
in effect: "Rejoice in this gift of God; honor 
this power of intelligence with which He has 
blessed man ; use it, as you would use your eyes, 
for seeing and for finding a delight in what is 
true and beautiful and in recognizing the true 
course of life to take." To see, not visual ob- 
jects only, but, as we sometimes say, to "see in 
our mind's eye" that a thing is true; to form a 
mental image or ideal of what it is to be honest, 
or righteous, or pure, or unselfish, or charitable, 
and to hold such ideals before ourselves as 
worthy of the deepest honor and the most de- 
voted effort; to see the truth or the good in a 
book or in some man's act ; to look through mere 
appearances and see the worth of some man's 
character who may not outwardly be attractive, 
the nobleness of his struggle, the essential good 
in his heart and the bravery of his life; to be able 
to discriminate ; to see things in their right rela- 
tions ; to look with steady, level gaze and not be 
deceived and carried away by the glamor of out- 
ward attractiveness or brilliancy, but hold to 
what is of essential value; to see that honor is 
greater than wealth; that to be able to work 
hard and accomplish some good is preferable to 
luxurious ease; to see the eternal wisdom of that 
saying: "A man's life consisteth not in the 



268 RELIGION AND LIFE 

abundance of the things which he possesseth" — 
to see these things, to see them clearly, to know 
their truth, is not that a kind of sight, more mar- 
vellous even than the seeing of these natural 
eyes? Is it not gained by the use and adjustment 
of powers of the mind, the straining out of un- 
desirable elements, and concentration upon what 
is vital by processes more deft and mysterious 
even than the processes by which we outwardly 
see? 

The Bible, however, does not pause here. Its 
chief solicitude is as to whether upon the retina, 
we might say, of a man's intelligence he sees the 
truths of eternal life? Does he see the distinc- 
tion between the life of the spirit and the life of 
the flesh? Does he see that he is essentially the 
child of God? Does he see that there is an all- 
loving, all-wise God in whom we live and move 
and have our being? Does he see "the heavens 
declare the glory of God and the firmament 
showing His handiwork ?" and that "the bur- 
nishing of the wings of the birds, the indenting 
of the leaves of a tree, the fashioning of gems 
in the earth, the formation and correlation of 
organs in the body of man/' — that these are of 
His creatorship and not simply the result of a 
self-determining power inherent in matter? 
When he looks into his soul can he see the evi- 
dence of processes of infinite love and wisdom 
by which God is trying to have him know the 
truth, and do the right? Can he see that there is 



SPIRITUAL SIGHT 269 

a Providence in the affairs of men, a power Di- 
vine forever trying to bring good out of ill? 
When he opens his Bible can he see that the wis- 
dom of God shines within it, and that it is a ver- 
itable lamp for his feet and a light to his path? 
When he looks at Jesus Christ our Lord can he 
see the divineness of His life and of His power 
of salvation, so that he can say from a convic- 
tion of soul : "Thou art the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life ?" 

These are the things, which, in the eyes of the 
Bible, are so momentous, so certain, so thrilling, 
so enlightening and uplifting! Is the man see- 
ing them? Is he directing the eyes of his mind 
towards them? Is he using the faculty of intelli- 
gence which God has given him for no less a 
purpose than that he may see them? Does he 
perceive the beauty of them? Do they hold him? 
Do they affect his ways of thinking, his ways of 
feeling, his ways of living? Or are they ob- 
scure? And if they are obscure, is not the man 
at least praying that he may see ? 

"Ah, (the Bible may sometimes have to cry of 
some of us) the man is spiritually blind! He 
does not see! His indifference, or his pride in 
his own opinions/ or his love of the world, or 
errors of belief — something has affected the finer 
things of his intelligence; and he does not see! 
He does not see the eternal realities ! The forces, 
the blessings, the daily, hourly Providences that 
are acting upon him — they make no impression 



270 RELIGION AND LIFE 

upon him ! They call forth no feeling of admira- 
tion or of gratitude! The light shines, but the 
eyes of the spiritual mind are closed !" 

And the Bible says further: "Look! look into 
your gospels, and read a sign : — the Lord's pity 
for the blind, His words of sympathy for the 
condition of blindness. That pity, those words, 
are intended to tell us how He longs to restore to 
any man this power of spiritual sight. See Him 
taking a blind man by the hand and leading him 
away where they can be alone; see Him making 
ointment out of the clay for this other man; see 
Him just laying His hands on the sealed eyes of 
these beggars ; hear Him saying, "I am the light 
of the world/' These are all "signs;" signs of 
His deep sorrow for all who are living in blind- 
ness of spirit; signs of His desire and of His 
power — if the blind will act with Him — "to give 
light to them that sit in darkness and in the sha- 
dow of death; to guide their feet in the way 
of peace." The Lord the Giver of light; the Re- 
coverer of sight; the Opener of the eyes of the 
blind! It is the fulfilment of a promise made 
ages before : — "The Lord will come down to the 
eyes of all people;" down to all grades of intelli- 
gence in infinite accommodation to their needs. 
Has He touched our eyes? Can we say: 

"As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their master, 
And as the eyes of a maid unto the hand of her mistress, 
So our eyes look unto the Lord our God. 
Until that He have mercy upon us." 



44-— SPIRITUAL HEARING. 

"If any man have ears to hear let him hear. And He 
said unto them, Take heed what ye hear." — Mark iv 123-24. 

A great thinker has pointed to the ear as one 
of the most wonderful things in this natural 
world. This is worth remarking upon : the mar- 
vellousness of hearing. We do not have to make 
any effort to hear; — that is, if our sense of hear- 
ing is intact. We do not hear because we are 
clever in the use of our ears. We do not hear, 
even, because we know how to use the different 
parts of the ear. We hear — we might as well 
own it — by the grace of God; because, to use an 
expression in one of the Psalms, God has planted 
the ear. 

If natural hearing is so wonderful, what shall 
we say of spiritual hearing? It is so wonderful 
to hear the least sound in nature ; to get its pitch ; 
to catch its spirit! The rumbling of an approach- 
ing train, or the song of a bird; crashing dis- 
cords, or the sobbing of a violin; the shouts of a 
mob, or the sigh of a lover! Vibrations, all of 
them; but vibrations which the ear sifts and sifts, 
until the most subtile tremblings are made 
known, and the spirit of man gasps or smiles, 

271 



2J2 RELIGION AND LIFE 

turns cold or becomes radiant as he says, "Yes, 
I hear; I understand !" 

And then the Word of God points to this mir- 
acle of hearing as a sign. If nature, with its 
myriad voices, can speak to us; if friends can 
make known every least or greatest thought or 
wish, and by the "overtones" in their voices can 
reveal the quality of the spirit whence the 
thought or affection springs; if the ear can so sift 
these waves of sound that the spirit behind the 
ear can instantly tell a cry of joy from one of 
pain, can even detect the spirit of insincerity or 
of suppressed love, not by what is actually said 
but by the felt quality of the shout, the word, 
the all but inaudible whisper — if all this be a 
fact with us day after day, cannot God speak 
words of eternal life to us that we may hear? 

Any good concordance will show that the Bible 
refers to this fact of hearing and of the ear some 
fifteen hundred times. It assumes that He who 
planted the ear has made it possible for any man 
to say in perfect sincerity of soul : "I will hear 
what God the Lord will speak." It assumes that 
God can communicate the thoughts of His heart, 
and that man may become distinctly aware of it. 
He does it through the multitudinous voices of 
Nature. He does it through the grave voice of 
History. He does it through the spirit of wis- 
dom which speaks within His Holy Word. He 
does it within that mysterious something heard 
sometimes within a child's, or a good man's, or a 



SPIRITUAL HEARING 273 

good woman's heart, which says that a thing is 
right or wrong, true or false. He speaks by an 
internal way; but He speaks. We ought to be 
very sure of that. 

For He keeps appealing to this sense of hear- 
ing. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." 
"Take heed what ye hear." "Blessed are they 
that hear the Word of God and keep it." "If 
any man will hear My voice and will open the 
door," — with all the rest of the beautiful promise 
of divine comradeship. 

To hear God! As I understand it, the Bible 
assumes that if a man is using his spiritual fac- 
ulties aright; if his soul is awake, and living as 
it should be living, and is not deadened by this 
dense smother of the natural, then he should be 
able to hear the voice of God — not as an audible 
sound within the cochlea of his ears, but as an in- 
ternal dictate, a kind of perception : so that when 
a certain something tells him what his duty is; 
or in the midst of temptation, warns him against 
evil; or, in a time of perplexity, makes him 
aware of what is the true, the noble thing for 
him to do; or, in the day of bereavement, calls 
to his remembrance truths of eternal life with a 
power of comfort and assurance — when our souls 
are affected in any of these ways we ought to 
know that God is speaking. We ought to know 
it with certainty. We ought to realize that won- 
derful and blessed as natural hearing is, this in- 
ternal form of speech and communication by 



274 RELIGION AND LIFE 

which our souls are appealed to by infinite love 
and wisdom in the little and great moments of 
our lives is even more wonderful, more sacred, 
and more blessed. And by analogy, we may be 
sure of this : the voice of God is adapted to our 
spiritual capacities as surely, and by as marvel- 
lous modes of accommodation, as take place in 
the modifications of sound within the ear. The 
voice which came to Elijah was a still small 
voice, a mere breath; but the prophet had ears 
to hear; and something in his soul told him that 
God in mercy was lowering His voice and speak- 
ing to him ; — to him in his discouragement there 
in a cave. 

The strongest lesson which the Bible teaches 
from this fact of hearing, is the lesson of obedi- 
ence. Again and again it couples hearing with 
doing. The eye communicates with the intelli- 
gence alone : but hearing appeals both to the in- 
telligence and to the affections. That is why the 
spoken word has ordinarily a greater power than 
the printed word. When the mother says to her 
child: "Listen," she means that her words of 
counsel are not only to be heard but cherished 
and obeyed. The Bible keeps speaking of hear- 
ing in the same way. "Hear, O Israel and ob- 
serve to do;" and Israel is taught to say in 
response : "All that the Lord our God shall 
speak ... we will hear it and do it." Re- 
member how the Lord closed the sermon on the 
mount : — "He that heareth these sayings of mine 



SPIRITUAL HEARING 275 

and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise 
man that built his house upon a rock." But what 
about the man who should hear those sayings, 
and not do them? He would be like a foolish 
man building upon the sand. 

To hear in the true sense means obedience. 
That is the message of the Bible. Let me recall 
a phrase of Swedenborg, where, speaking of this 
spiritual significance of hearing, he characterizes 
it as u a perception that a thing is to be done/' 
immediately adding, "this is the ruling perception 
in heaven. ,, For "hearing is given to man chiefly 
for receiving wisdom — and wisdom is to per- 
ceive, to will, and to do." To hear in this sense 
is no vague, mystical experience. It is a revela- 
tion of truth, adapted to us and to our experi- 
ence, making known some duty, or making clear 
the true course of conduct; and the man who 
hears as God would have him hear, will not sim- 
ply say: "Thank God, for He has spoken;" but 
with his spirit stirred, braced, encouraged, he 
will say : "God hath spoken ; this is to be done ; 
help me, God, in the doing of it." 



45-— THE SACRED POWER OF MEMORY. 

"And the Syrians . . . had brought away captive out 
of the land of Israel a little maiden; and she waited on 
Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress: Would 
that my Lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! 
then would he recover him of his leprosy.' " — 2 Kings v. 
2,3. 

These verses tell of a little Hebrew girl who 
had been snatched from her home in the land of 
Israel, carried away captive, and lodged in the 
house of Naaman the Syrian. There she grew 
up, serving her mistress, a part of the household, 
but still a captive. But it seems that when this 
"mighty man of valor" was stricken with leprosy, 
and every effort to rid him of his plague had 
failed, the little Hebrew captive saved the day. 
She did it through the power of memory. For 
she carried in her child's heart the remembrance 
of a prophet who was to her the embodiment of 
the religion of her people. It was the faith of a 
child, innocent, implicit, and bathed withal in a 
kind of spiritual splendor. New sights, new 
ways, work, homesickness, — these had not blotted 
out the faith of her childhood. And when the 
awful affliction came upon her master, when she 
felt the blight that settled upon that home, and 

276 



SACRED POWER OF MEMORY 27? 

each new effort to rid him of his plague ended in 
failure, then the faith of her childhood was 
stirred. Once more she seemed to see the good 
man Elisha ; and the innocent reverence and trust 
stirred her soul. Once more she was reaching 
out eager, believing hands as in the dear days of 
old. For the moment she was not a captive ; she 
was that little girl in her father's house in the 
beautiful land of Israel. Her child's faith must 
have been strong, for Naaman, after some par- 
leying, thought it worth while to set out with 
his horses and chariots, his presents and his ser- 
vants, to seek the help of the wonderful prophet 
of his little slave girl. 

Who does not see the spiritual drift of this 
incident? That captive-child stands for the 
sacred power of memory; and through her, the 
Word of God is saying to us: "Believe it; there 
is nothing more precious, more potent than this 
power which can take you back to the time when 
you were an innocent, light-hearted boy or girl 
in your father's house, and enable you to ex- 
perience once more some of the very emotions 
which were yours when you were a little child." 
The white, sinless days! the trustful days! the 
days when our most simple pleasures had for us 
a radiance all their own ! We think of them now 
as beautiful; but they were more than that. Can 
they, do they play any part in our present life? 

Psychology has demonstrated the fact that es- 
sentially we never forget. We may lack the 



278 RELIGION AND LIFE 

power at a given moment to recall a name, or a 
date, or an incident which we wish to bring be- 
fore our mind; yet the proof is abundant that 
nothing which has made an impression upon our 
consciousness, and especially nothing to which 
we have given attention or loved is ever lost. It 
may be covered over by more recent impressions ; 
it may be held under by the smother of worldly 
cares, pleasures, and sins; but it is there. 
Furthermore, the power of suggestion may at 
any time reach it, and make it the most powerful 
force in our lives. A voice, a face, a song, a 
word, an incident may start a train of reminis- 
cences and revive emotions which we thought 
were gone, but which, when awakened, bring a 
rush of gladness, and holiness, and longing not 
easily put into words. 

This is one of the most significant phenomena 
in our lives. The spiritual power of these early 
impressions is due to the presence and influence 
of angels who are close to the souls of little chil- 
dren, and through whom they are tinged with 
a celestial quality. The authority for a belief 
in this heavenly guardianship is to be found in 
the Lord's declaration: "Their angels (that is, 
of children), do always behold the face of My 
Father who is in heaven. ,, No exception is made. 
This celestial presence, together with the intense 
love that seems to be a part of it, is assured to 
every child that is born. It is as true of the 
waif as it is of the child tended with the wisest 



SACRED POWER OF MEMORY 279 

and most devoted care. For however repulsive 
or shocking the outward conditions may be, the 
soul of a little child is guileless. It is plastic; and 
from the viewpoint of those whose attention is all 
centred on its spiritual well-being, now is the 
golden opportunity for introducing states of feel- 
ing which shall serve as the initiaments of spirit- 
ual life. The opportunities for this are much 
simpler than we may think. The love for par- 
ents, playmates, teachers; everything which ap- 
peals to a child as beautiful — -songs, birds, flow- 
ers, its playthings, even, — all innocent beliefs in 
God and His angels, these may all become sur- 
charged with heavenly life and power through 
the sympathetic love of their celestial guar- 
dians. 

These things remain. They insure to every 
one an element that is pure and heavenly to 
which appeal may be made. They become ob- 
scured. For their better protection they are 
quietly indrawn, where they cannot be reached by 
evil thoughts or by our lusts. But there they are, 
elements of eternal life, the actual beginnings of 
that "Kingdom of God" which our Lord de- 
clared is within us all, waiting to be quickened. 
For the changes come. The innocent loves ap- 
parently pass away; the childlike faith seems to 
break up in questionings, and the coming in of 
a self-confident contentious spirit. Many a youth 
lives and thinks and feels as if such things had 
never been. Many a man comes to feel that all 



280 RELIGION AND LIFE 

the good and the faith has been crushed out of 
him by the grinding of work, or the lust of 
riches, or the sordidness and disenchantments of 
the world. 

We' know the mood well enough. If we have 
never been oppressed by it ourselves, we have 
encountered it in others. And yet this heavenly 
doctrine which I am trying to unfold seems to 
say: "Have courage to believe that no matter 
what the man may think or say about himself; 
no matter what he may be, these heavenly states 
of life are in him. He thinks he has outgrown 
or forfeited them; perhaps he does not think of 
them except as childish and unreal; he has gone 
back of them; he has let all that celestial glory in 
which he once stood die away, 'and fade into 
the light of common day/ And still these diviner 
things are there, with the life of heaven in them, 
capable of being stirred, of coming back with a 
power of appeal, with a sense of strange happi- 
ness and deep longing which may be the means 
of re-creating the man." 

I once asked Mrs. Ballington Booth, whose 
work among the prisoners is so well known and 
so remarkable, how she accounted for her in- 
fluence over them; for even the wardens have 
marvelled at it. Her answer was most signifi- 
cant. "I stand to those men," she said, "simply 
as a pozver of memory." And to illustrate what 
she meant, she read this letter which she had just 
received from a prisoner, whose character was re- 



SACRED POWER OF MEMORY 281 

garded by his keepers as being particularly hard 
and hopeless: 

"Dear little Mother: 

It was not you that I saw last night : it was not you that 
I heard; it was my mother." 

Through a grace given of God to one fitted 
and consecrated for such a holy service, here was 
a woman actually reaching, touching, calling into 
life imprisoned elements of a heavenly quality in 
a nature whom others had abandoned as lost. 

We think of this as strange, almost incredible. 
The Scriptures do not warrant our incredulity. 
Remember how strongly a Psalm asserts the fun- 
damental character of the heavenly impressions 
experienced in childhood : "Out of the mouth of 
babes and sucklings Thou hast obtained strength' ' 
—literally, "Thou hast laid the foundations of 
strength" Here is the basis of power: these 
heavenly states of feeling stored up in childhood. 
It opens up at once the deeper meaning of this 
story of the little captive pleading in the house 
of Naaman the leper; all the faith, all the love, 
all the innocence, all the hope of her life plead- 
ing with him, begging him to believe that in 
the beautiful land from which she was taken, 
the help of the living God was sure to be found. 

What a wonderful truth it is! what possibili- 
ties it seems to have! How it should make us 
devoted mission-workers among the children; 
convinced that every abuse from which we shield 



282 RELIGION AND LIFE 

them, and every opportunity for gladness and for 
good which we can open up to them, is work done 
of the most vital and lasting character! How, 
too, it should affect our attitude towards all peo- 
ple ! What a rebuke it should put upon our con- 
tempt and our cynicism ! How it should help to 
temper our animosities and dislikes, and make us 
more charitable than we are ! 

"The Kingdom of God is within you," our 
Lord said. Heavenly things are there. Can we 
believe in them? hope for them? stand to some 
soul that needs it for "a power of memory ?" 






46.— TESTED. 

"0, Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom 
thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the 
lions? Then said Daniel unto the king: O, King, live 
forever. My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut the 
lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me." — Daniel 
vi : 20-22. 

Daniel the prophet, who was felt even by the 
Babylonians to have a wisdom superior to that 
of their sooth-sayers, magicians, and astrologers; 
who could interpret dreams and read strange 
doom-words; looked up to and honored, and yet 
dreaded and persecuted, too ; so solitary, so stead- 
fast in his faith — this noble, expressive figure 
stands for the Divine Truth as we know it in 
Him whom he foreshadowed, and who was also 
respected and feared, loved and rejected. This 
lowering of the man of God into a den of wild 
beasts is like a parable of the trials to which 
Faith may be subjected. As with Daniel, this 
takes place at night, when we are "shadowed by 
doubts/' and our spirits have become depressed 
and run down, and, as we say, "things look 
dark." Then there comes that "let-down" con- 
dition of faith; and in spite of ourselves, falsi- 
ties come stealing up out of the obscurity of our 

283 



284 RELIGION AND LIFE 

lower minds, and crouch about it. "Their teeth 
are as spears and arrows; and their tongue a 
sharp sword." They say mocking, bitter things. 
They say things like these: "Of what avail is 
your faith when scarcely any one really lives up 
to it?" "What good is Christian truth, when 
hundreds who profess it are just as selfish and 
grasping in their business; just as foolishly 
ambitious, and self-indulgent, and ostentatious, 
and extravagant in their personal life as the out- 
and-out worldling?" "Of what use to exalt the 
name of your Lord and Saviour in your 
Churches when so few are ready to live the sim- 
ple, serene, just life which He set forth; seeking 
first — first! — the kingdom of God and His 
righteousness, without anxious thought for 
riches, for food, for clothes?" 

This is the spiritual situation: The Truth as 
our Lord has revealed it, regarded with a feeling 
of respect, and yet exposed to hostile forces 
which feel its presence as an intrusion, and are 
ready to rend it in pieces. "Is the Christian 
faith being lived?" "Can it be lived as the world 
is constituted to-day?" "Is Christendom Chris- 
tian except in name?" These are the questions 
which are being asked with greater and greater 
insistence in these times of unrest. More and 
more it becomes the central — must we say, the 
vulnerable? — point of attack. The conditions of 
modern life are so complex, the interrelation of 
human affairs so intricate; the standards of taste 



TESTED 285 

and comfort by which men gauge human well- 
being, are so changed; the struggle to gain even 
moderate success makes such demands upon one's 
time and strength; the pace is so swift, that the 
livableness of the principles of our religion is 
boldly challenged, and the gravest question that 
they have ever faced is raised. 
Three things I would urge: — 

1. We need a better understanding of the 
truths of our faith. We need to do some straight 
thinking. How men will investigate some subject 
which concerns them in their work! How they 
will study it, familiarizing themselves with its 
every detail! They know that they must be in- 
formed or they cannot hope to succeed. Here is 
the greatest subject of all : the teachings of our 
religion. Here is something that concerns the 
whole scope of man's life: his character, the 
truths he should believe, the motives he should 
employ, the laws for the growth of his soul with 
which he should be familiar — a thousand things 
which concern him vitally as a man created in 
the image of God. How many outside of pro- 
fessed teachers, make these things a matter of 
real study? How many are lazily satisfied with 
a few generalities ? But the issue raised : — the 
livableness of Christian truth — is too vital to 
allow any one to remain in mere half-truths. We 
need to set our minds upon and know just what 
we believe and why we believe it. 

2. I urge in the second place a respect for the 



286 RELIGION AND LIFE 

loyal souls who do believe the Christian truth 
and who do live it. Remember the Bible doc- 
trine of "the remnant." A few men, completely 
outnumbered, who preserve their spiritual integ- 
rity, who will not sacrifice their ideals, who are 
willing to be laughed at, or go poor, — anything 
rather than dishonor that which their souls hold 
in reverence — these have in every age of the 
world been the hope of the race. Through these, 
God has always done great things. Without 
them the world would simply go on unchecked 
in courses of folly and evil. Because of them the 
Lord enables this great lumbering world to renew 
its faith and its hope from time to time, and make 
fresh advances. After all, it is true, as has been 
said: "The only effective utilitarians are the 
idealists. The heart of the world turns with its 
final loyalty to lives untainted by self-seeking 
greed." 

3. I urge finally the need of undivided desires. 
The more it is urged that the conditions amid 
which we live are unprecedented ; the more doubt 
is cast upon the possibility of living the Christian 
life here and now, the more we need to remember 
the one condition on which the Lord assured His 
followers success: the undivided dedication of 
the will to His righteousness and service. "Ye 
cannot serve God and Mammon." Never so 
much as now have we needed this solemn warn- 
ing. If we fail to live the Christian life, it is not 
because the conditions make it impossible, — for 



TESTED 287 

it has been lived and is being lived under every 
condition — but it is because we have not the 
spiritual courage to give it our undivided loyalty. 
It is better to know this, and to own it, and to 
say frankly that we do not dare to make the high 
venture, than to falsify the truth and pretend 
that the trouble lies there. 

Daniel was true. Men thought that they would 
make him suffer for it. They sealed him up in 
a den. The lions came round about him. "O, 
Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God 
whom thou servest continually, able to deliver 
thee from the lions?" And the answer came 
back "My God hath sent His angel and hath 
shut the lions' mouths, and they have not hurt 
me." 

Connect this with the phrase in Isaiah: "The 
angel of His presence saved them." It expresses 
the truth of the Lord's saving power. And the 
phrase is all the more expressive when we re- 
member that literally it means, "the angel of His 
face." He looks, He sees, He knows, He cares. 
He asks us to believe that He is ever mindful of 
us and would protect us from spiritual harm. 
"The angel of His face saved them." And 

"That one face, far from vanish, rather grows, 
Or decomposes but to recompose, 
Become my universe that feels and knows." * 



* Robert Browning. 



47-— THE DREAD OF PAIN AND STRUG- 
GLE, AND ITS PENALTY. 

"Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath 
settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel 
to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity ; therefore his 
taste remaineth in him, and his scent is not changed/' — 
Jer. xlviii:n. 

Moab, although here addressed as an individ- 
ual, is the name of a nation. It occupied a region 
of great fertility. Its beautiful hills overlooked 
the Holy Land, and the river Jordan flowed at 
its feet. To this smiling country the tribes of 
Israel came, not to tarry in it, but to pass 
through and enter the land of Canaan at the 
end of their long wanderings. Moab, however, 
would not allow it. It would not be disturbed 
in this way. It bristled up at the thought of the 
passing through of this strange, or, as it must 
have seemed, this fanatical little host, headed by 
an ark containing the tables of the Divine Law 
borne on the shoulders of priests, marching to- 
wards their "Promised Land." 

All this, as we can readily see, is like a par- 
able. It is the life that is intent on being satis- 
fied with merely natural blessings, and that does 
not propose to be invaded by a spiritual element. 

288 



DREAD OF PAIN AND STRUGGLE 289 

Moab is the man who refuses to take the fact 
seriously that this life is a probationary life. He 
takes it as if it were the only life, and he in- 
tends to get all the satisfaction out of it that he 
can. The thought of God or of a future life 
shall not disturb him. Israel shall not pass 
through his land. Let these religious beliefs ap- 
peal to others. Let them call forth in them a 
class of emotions and self-effacing efforts and 
consecrations, which stir their souls. This shall 
not be his way. And although the prophet with- 
holds any burning words of judgment, he char- 
acterizes this by a simile which carries with it its 
own reproach. It is like wine, he says, which 
has been left standing on its lees. When first 
pressed out of the grape cluster, the wine is 
coarse. Its odor is strong. It is full of impuri- 
ties. These impurities sink to the bottom. They 
are the dregs. They are "the lees" of which the 
text speaks. If the wine is left to stand there 
on this first coarse sediment, it will not improve. 
It will retain its first crude flavor, and its scent 
will not change. It needs to be drained off, to be 
emptied first into one vessel then into another, 
until it becomes "well refined." 

It is the symbol, as any one can see, of regen- 
eration : — spiritual fermentations, the pouring 
forth of the beliefs of the soul, now into this ex- 
perience, now into that; testing them, straining 
them, freeing them little by little of the gross 
and selfish elements which first are in them. 



290 RELIGION AND LIFE 

Moab will have none of this. He stands on his 
lees. He will not let his spiritual life assert it- 
self. He shuts himself up to this natural life. 
He dreads pain. He dreads struggle. He dreads 
hardship. 

When we say these things, do we not bring 
before ourselves a condition of mind which is 
as serious as it is common? And is it not one 
which threatens the three principal spheres of 
life: — the physical, the mental, and the spiritual? 
"The prevalent fear of poverty among the edu- 
cated classes is the worst moral disease from 
which our civilization suffers. . . . We have 
grown literally afraid to be poor." This was 
the deliberate judgment of William James, and 
he went on to say: "We have lost the power of 
even imagining what the ancient idealization of 
poverty could have meant; the liberation from 
material attachments, the unbribed soul, the man- 
lier indifference, the paying one's way by what 
we are or do and not what we have, the right to 
throw our life at any moment irresponsively into 
some good cause — the more athletic trim, in 
short, the moral fighting shape. Men are scared 
as they were never scared in history at material 
ugliness and hardship."* 

The same is true of pain. Why, we are 
grown so afraid of pain that men and women 
by hundreds and by thousands rush together to 
form what purports to be a religion which shall 

* Varieties of Religious Experience. 



DREAD OF PAIN AND STRUGGLE 291 

proclaim to all the world that there is no such 
thing as sin, sickness, or death; and that to ad- 
mit that these things are anything more than 
"errors of mortal mind," which can be banished 
at will, is to be guilty of a kind of mental base- 
ness. The Churches themselves, in order to check 
the stampede to this self-constituted emancipator 
from human ills, are feeling constrained — some 
of them — to make, or try to make, the healing 
of physical diseases a conspicuous part of their 
religious programme. We are even trying to 
make men good by the power of "suggestion" 
imparted when in a state of self -surrender; and 
children are being freed of little unruly ways 
without a struggle of their own, while they are 
asleep ! 

In our mental life is there not the tendency to 
avoid good hard thinking ? To pass by the solid 
books and lightly skim the brief, crisp article in 
some popular magazine which shall call for the 
minimum of mental effort? 

In religion, even, does not this spirit of ease 
try to assert itself? Prayer, the reading of God's 
Word, public worship on the Lord's day, the 
active support of the Church — men can find num- 
berless excuses for slighting or completely ignor- 
ing these duties which do call for a little personal 
effort, substituting for them other things which 
seem easier. And more subtle still, is there not 
a tendency to leave evil undisturbed, to make no 
effort to gain clear beliefs, to make the love of 



292 RELIGION AND LIFE 

God a kind of downy pillow on which our souls 
may take their rest, persuading ourselves that it 
is wrong to come into states of mental distress 
and pain of heart? 

Surely there is such a thing as "smothering 
the soul in fatness." If all went smoothly and 
softly, if life knew no dread menace, if an easy 
path were always prepared for our feet, would 
we be better men and women? Being what we 
are, if we had what a writer once called "our lub- 
ber-land of bliss/' would we lift our eyes above 
and beyond? 

Remember that significant phrase in one of the 
Psalms : "Because they have no changes, there- 
fore they know not God." That was the fate of 
Moab's success. He stood upon his lees; and 
"his taste remained in him; his scent was not 
changed." Here, certainly is a danger to which 
we are all exposed; to let blessings get stagnant, 
to let beliefs remain unimproved, to let precious 
relationships lose their influence. For what form 
of activity, or belief, or love is there, which, 
when we first enter into it, is not mixed with 
some crudities and imperfections? 

And so we should not be dismayed in finding 
that a wise Providence makes use of this ele- 
ment of change to refine some affection, or belief, 
or talent, or trait, or occupation. The family 
circle becomes broken ; long-continued health 
gives way; a condition of prosperity comes to 
an end — so we see this ministry of changes at 



DREAD OF PAIN AND STRUGGLE 293 

work. So some can look back and name the 
days when the great changes came. No easy ex- 
perience this; and yet one that is infinitely bet- 
ter than Moab's, with his unbroken, satisfied, un- 
improved life. For whether these changes are 
marked or but slightly observable, their purpose 
is always the same : to rouse us from certain dan- 
gers which go with any form of long-continued 
prosperity — loss of gratitude, loss of a sense of 
dependence, and loss of earnestness. If a man 
holds his blessings in mere ease, if nothing ever 
threatens or disturbs them, he stands in grave 
danger after a time of wearing them in pride and 
self-satisfaction. 

Such a man settles on his lees; and however 
abundant the wine of his vintage, it is coarsened 
and spoiled by the impurities of his self-love 
which settle like dregs and on which his blessings 
stand. 

The outward form of those blessings may long 
continue; but the taste of his selfishness, his 
pride, his ungratefulness is in them. What he 
was, he still is: the same self-confident, self-lov- 
ing' man. "His taste remaineth in him, and his 
scent is not changed." So men who have had 
everything to be thankful for may, at bottom, re- 
main selfish to the last. Their lives seem fat, 
but their souls are lean. 

Therefore, beware what has been called "the 
millennium of Moab." Moral degeneration creeps 
upon the man or the nation that sits at ease. 



294 RELIGION AND LIFE 

"Everything that makes man great partakes of 
discipline." If it be so, then let us at least meet 
the changes in life when they come, not as if 
they were cruel, unexplainable blows, but as men 
who try to realize that the occasion has come 
to meet life in some nobler way. It will be some- 
thing to be able to say : 

"And so I live, yon see, 
Go through the world, try, prove, reject, 
Prefer, still struggling to effect 
My warfare; happy that I can 
Be crossed and thwarted as a man, 
Not left in God's contempt apart, 
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, 
Tame, in earth's paddock as her prize." * 



* Robert Browning. 



48.— THE FOOTPATH TO GOD. 

I. The New Search for the Christian 
Ideals of Life. 

"And seeing the multitude He went up into the moun- 
tain: and when He had sat down His disciples came unto 
Him; and He opened His mouth and taught them, say- 
ing :"— Matt. v:i-2. 

That never to be forgotten picture ! The Son 
of Man looking with sympathetic eyes upon a 
great concourse of "all sorts and conditions of 
men" as they thronged His steps by the sea 
shore, feeling their sense of spiritual need, re- 
sponding to it with a feeling of infinite com- 
passion and desire, turning His steps to some 
footpath in the mountain, leading the way with 
grave gentleness and compelling attraction, 
reaching the summit, waiting for the multitude 
to become settled into order and expectancy, His 
disciples close to Him, and then beginning that 
immortal sermon which to this day we call "the 
Sermon on the Mount!" The Sermon on the 
Heights we might also call it, spoken to men in 
their simplest or their direst needs, with the Bless- 
ings as the most perfect introduction to a dis- 
course of wisdom which has compelled the at- 

295 



296 RELIGION AND LIFE 

tention of mankind. The laws of charity and con- 
duct so clear, so firm, so all-revealing! Such 
gentle appeals to the good in His hearers to be 
sincere, to be believing, to be mindful of each 
other, to be patient, to be watchful, to be hope- 
ful ! And the wonderful close : the picture of 
the man, whoever he might be, who, hearing 
these sayings and doing them, would be as one 
who built his house upon a rock ; and the picture 
of the man, whoever he might be, who, hearing 
them and perhaps believing them but doing them 
not, would be as one who should build his house 
upon the sand ! "And it came to pass when Jesus 
had ended these sayings, the people were aston- 
ished at His doctrine, for He taught them as 
One having authority, and not as the scribes." 

Wonderful picture! The mountain climb, the 
sermon, and in the end the conviction on the part 
of a strangely heterogeneous multitude that Love 
and Wisdom had spoken the words of eternal 
life! Is it not more than a picture? That mov- 
ing mass, ascending what we might almost liter- 
ally call "the hill of the Lord," with the Son of 
Man at the head, — is it not like a beautiful par- 
able? The multitudes of men and women are 
more than individuals. They are as moving 
figures personifying the almost innumerable 
wants and necessities of our common humanity. 
Each one as he comes straggling up the path is 
as if he represented some need, some desire, some 
worry, some disappointment, some ambition, 



THE FOOTPATH TO GOD 297 

some experience, whether of poverty, or sickness, 
or bereavement; or, on the other hand, of suc- 
cess, of natural responsibility; some problem, 
some question of duty — the multitude of things 
which make up our natural life as we feel it and 
know it. 

It is as a living parable that we may study it ; 
and especially for what it may say in helping to 
meet the new problem that has come upon reli- 
gion. 

The message of the modern pulpit, it is felt 
more and more, cannot be purely theological if 
it would command attention; it cannot be purely 
individualistic; it must also be social. Religion 
cannot resolve itself simply into a system of 
truths and ideals, however faultless, leaving it 
to a few well-minded individuals to carry out or 
not, according to their volition and their faith- 
fulness. There is something more than the indi- 
vidual man, and the individual soul, and the 
individual welfare : there is the greater indi- 
vidual, the larger man, what our teachings for 
a century and a half have been proclaiming under 
the ponderous, foreign-sounding nomenclature : 
the Maximus Homo. We have thought of that, 
perhaps, as one of the theological doctrines which 
only a few students could be expected to explore. 
It is much more than that. It is become not only 
a practical teaching but a burning issue. For 
the Maximus Homo is nothing less than man in 
the aggregate; it is the Social Man; it is Man- 



298 RELIGION AND LIFE 

kind. And one of the imperative questions be- 
fore the Church to-day is : "Has it a Gospel for 
the social conscience?" It certainly has for the 
individual. But what of men regarded as a 
social group? It is in that form in which, vol- 
untarily or otherwise, man has to lead his life. 
It is in that form, moreover, in which the most 
interesting as well as the most pressing problems 
present themselves to him in his daily experi- 
ences. Can this picture of the New Testament 
be realized among modern conditions: the Lord 
Jesus drawing a multitude after Him from the 
lowlands of contention, of rival material inter- 
ests, of heroic struggle or double-dealing, of 
personal privations and injustices or of personal 
affluence and privilege — can He inspire this 
strangely assorted, this restless multitude with 
some high desire, fuse it into some degree of 
oneness, attract it to a plane of life so high that 
as a group, a social unit, it will listen to His 
voice, be affected by His teaching, and have faith 
in ideals of conduct which shall mould it into a 
Christian Society? 

"And seeing the multitudes He went up into 
the mountain/' Oh, wonderful parable of the 
Lord's divine insight and of faith that not a few 
chosen individuals merely, nor only some special 
class, but this larger, bewildered social man, can 
be led from the plane of earthly struggle and 
duty to one high enough to be affected by His 
spirit of wisdom and love ! And this means, as it 



THE FOOTPATH TO GOD 299 

seems to me/ that there must come into man's 
conscience, with a new conviction and power of 
appeal, a realization that his own individual con- 
duct must take into consideration the true wel- 
fare of the larger life about him of which he is 
but a part. He cannot sin by himself alone : his 
sin or his selfishness, his folly or his worldliness, 
his vulgar display, his luxurious idleness or his 
sordidness affect the world about him and work 
harm and bring misery, none the less real and 
none the less sinful because he may not see it. 
And, on the other hand, if he shall sanctify him- 
self, it must not simply be for his own well-being. 
Remember those great words : "For their sakes I 
sanctify Myself; that they also may be sancti- 
fied." The needs, the claims of the social man 
are greater than our individual ones. We may 
sometimes feel that we hardly know how to 
answer that old, old question when primitive man 
first struck his brother to the ground, "Am I my 
brother's keeper ?" but we cannot escape the truth 
in that exclamation of one of the first follow- 
ers of our Lord: "No man liveth unto himself; 
and no man dieth unto himself ." The larger 
life surrounds us. To help us realize that more 
deeply, and cause it to re-enforce our individual 
struggle after righteousness, is one of the new 
demands laid upon the religion that would move 
with strength amid the conditions of these times. 
Not to impose an added burden of discourage- 
ment, must it come; but rather as giving an 



300 RELIGION AND LIFE 

added incentive and feeling of solemnity and 
glory. My kinsman, my friend, my neighbor, 
my acquaintance, the stranger, the man whom 
I shall see, the social being of which I am but 
the merest part, and yet a part — if I think not 
of them, if their welfare does not enter into my 
heart, I have not taken into my life one of the 
fundamental principles of the religion of Jesus 
Christ which I profess to believe. 

Gan only a few rare souls feel the reality and 
the sacredness of the greater man about us? 
Will any say: "It is but a dream ?" But a wise 
man has said : "A dream which all men dream 
together, and which they must dream, is no 
longer a dream, but a reality." And who has 
taught us thus to dream and to pray so surely as 
He, who, "seeing the multitudes, led them up 
into the mountain ?" 



49.— THE FOOTPATH TO HUMANITY. 

II. The New Sense of Christian 
Obligation. 

"And when He was come down from the mountain, great 
multitudes followed Him." — Matt viii:i. 

The Sermon on the Mount had been preached. 
For all, all men and for all time the Blessings 
had been spoken, the Lord's Prayer said, the plea 
made for greater sincerity in religion, for a more 
thorough shunning of evil, for a more loving 
confiding of pain and struggle to God, for truer 
justice and larger charity as between man and 
man. It had been a wonderful experience, a 
truly epochal hour up there on the mountain. 
The multitudes hushed to silence, and moved, it 
would seem, by the simple, wonderful truths of 
eternal life that proceeded out of His mouth! 
The Divine Teacher of Righteousness, strong 
and gracious in His divinely-human Person, hold- 
ing their attention, kindling their faith, arousing 
their hopes, quickening their souls ! 

There is no record of any contention. No 
one tempted Him with some cynical question or 
remark. The people heard Him through. Like 

301 



3 02 RELIGION AND LIFE 

the tide of a great river, the sermon flowed resist- 
lessly on, a veritable "river of water of life, 
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of 
God and of the Lamb/' It swept them on with 
gentle power to regions of thought and of love 
that were new and wonderful. And when it 
was over, may we not think of them as drawing 
deep breath as they realized that "never man 
spake like this man" ? Different as they may 
have been in personal needs and social conditions, 
they seemed for the moment to have been fused 
into oneness. For the time being it seemed as if, 
on a small scale, humanity sat or stood there 
before the Lord Jesus and trusted and loved Him 
for the way of life which He opened up before 
them. Truly, He had led them up the Footpath 
to God — the God whose love and wisdom shone 
in His face and throbbed in every word He 
spoke. 

And then the Divine Teacher arose. With- 
out fear of drawing too much upon our imagin- 
ation, we can think of Him as looking with kind 
eyes upon the men and women about Him; and 
while they were still under the gracious spell of 
their experience, "astonished at His doctrine," 
He began the descent of the mountain. With 
the divine teachings singing their messages of 
hope and of life within their souls, He led them 
back to the world, back to their homes, back to 
their life of struggle and duty. He took the 
footpath once more, the footpath which had led 



THE FOOTPATH TO HUMANITY 303 

them to God; and now it became the footpath 
to Humanity. The sequel is told very simply 
but significantly in these words of the Gospel : 
"When He was come down from the mountain, 
great multitudes followed Him." 

He did not shake off that larger man whom 
He had led up into the mountain, nor did that 
maximus homo detach itself from Him. The 
social man did not look after Him with a sigh 
as He moved along the seashore and say : "Alas, 
these teachings are not for me and my tumultu- 
ous life! These ideals of love, and of justice, 
and of duty are too high; I cannot attain to 
them ! I have dreamed a dream. I have looked 
upon the Kingdom of God; and blessed is He 
who has revealed it. But it is only a dream. 
Let the Divine Teacher go His way. With His 
spirit of love, with His strange faith in the capa- 
bilities of man, with His infinite desire to save 
and to bless, let Him go on His way and do such 
good as He can." 

All that would sound so much like our way 
of speaking when the social problem comes be- 
fore us! And it is before us. It sounds so 
much like our way of insisting that it is only 
with individual righteousness that the religion of 
our Lord can concern itself. But there are those 
words in the Gospel : "When He was come down 
from the mountain great multitudes followed 
Him." For a time, at least, the larger man felt 
a new hope springing up in his heart. For a 



3 04 RELIGION AND LIFE 

time he believed that the Lord had the words of 
eternal life for him, for his problems, for his 
needs. For a time he believed that he could 
follow Him ; and that he, too, could be saved ! 

We create a problem when there is none. 
Some of us say: "The Lord's ministry is for 
the regeneration of the individual." We say : 
"If human society is morally corrupt; if it is 
essentially selfish; if it practises injustice, the 
hope of a social regeneration lies in the regenera- 
tion of the individual. Let each man see to it 
that he carries out the true law of charity or of 
neighborly love ; let him see to it that he carries 
out faithfully the duties of his calling; let him 
see to it that he himself is upright, kind, and 
pure, and all the ills from which we suffer, all 
forms' of social injustice, all plutocracy, all pau- 
per-misery must disappear." 

And yet in thus urging the claims of the indi- 
vidual man and of the social man, is there any 
reason why we should think of them as rival 
claims? Is not one as valid as the other? Is 
either one wholly separable from the other? 
Surely, it was one of the striking and beautiful 
characteristics of our Lord's ministry upon earth 
that He who could give of Himself so unre- 
servedly to individual cases of need and prove 
Himself a Saviour to the humblest soul, never 
failed to present His mission as a mission to the 
larger man or humanity as well. Mankind is as 
real an entity as any single individual. The 



THE FOOTPATH TO HUMANITY 305 

character of this larger man, or human society, — 
his history, his struggle and growth, the good 
and the bad in him, the moral and spiritual dan- 
gers that beset him, the love of power that may 
inflame him, the deceitfulness of riches that may 
ensnare him, — all this must be as real and as 
vital to Him, who, in His omniscience, is able to 
see one in all and all in one, as are the con- 
ditions and needs of the single soul. And this 
being true, social regeneration is as essential as 
the regeneration of the individual. 

In saying this I have not in mind any of the 
many political or social programmes drawn up 
and advocated for the betterment of society. I 
am content to urge a general principle. That 
principle is simply this : The gospel of Jesus 
Christ is addressed to the larger man, to Society 
as well as to the individual. The substance of 
that message it is not difficult to understand or 
state. It is surprisingly simple: "One is your 
Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren" 
I know not what this proposed measure or that 
may do for the betterment of man's industrial 
and social life, but of this we may be sure: that 
great prophetic cry of triumph : "The kingdoms 
of this world are become our Lord's and His 
Christ's" can never be realized until the industrial 
and social order is so founded in justice, and is 
so permeated by good-will as to meet this high 
test: "One is your Master, even Christ, and all 
ye are brethren." 



306 RELIGION AND LIFE 

Human brotherhood, for which it may be 
said with sureness, our Lord looks and labors, 
is founded on the simple, elemental fact that 
"God is the God and Father of all people/' To 
be in filial relation with God the Lord and in 
fraternal relations with fellow men — is not that 
the message which our Lord tried to bring to the 
hearts and consciences of men as individuals and 
as parts of the greater man? The larger man 
is my neighbor in even a greater degree than the 
individual. If there are injustices; if, instead 
of fraternity, there is too often selfish oppres- 
sion, I dare not shut up my soul from them, I 
dare not close my eyes nor seal my lips, mindful 
only that I myself shall not transgress, if I would 
fulfil the law of Christ. 

Through all the agencies which the Lord is 
able to employ — and unless the signs are false, 
they are many and they are being marshalled to- 
gether — shall there not be created a social con- 
science, which, inspired by the spirit of the Son 
of Man, shall mightily declare against social 
wrongs? It is largely a question of accepting or 
of rejecting Christ's law of service. Think how 
profoundly He stated that Law, which we quote 
so often and so glibly: "He that is greatest 
among you, let him be as the younger : and he 
that is chief, as he that doth serve." Oh, won- 
derful law, which asks the strong man to believe 
that he is only truly strong in the degree that he 
uses his strength in helpfulness to the weak! 



THE FOOTPATH TO HUMANITY 307 

The greatest of all, the servant of all ! And the 
law is true. For He who gave it fulfilled it; 
fulfilled it utterly. 

The Lord hasten the day when His law of ser- 
vice shall create a sense of obligation so true, 
that, actuated by His spirit, men in their indi- 
vidual life shall become true children of God; and 
the multitude, won by Him and following Him, 
shall become a true Brotherhood. 



5o.— THE QUESTION OF AN ANXIOUS 
SOUL. 

"Now when John heard in prison the works of the 
Christ, he sent by his disciples and said unto Him : Art 
Thou He that should come, or do we look for another ?" 
—Matt. ii:2. 

Jesus Christ as the Incarnation of God? The 
Gospels have given us that truth. They have 
called it "the good news." John the Baptist 
stood for that truth in all its literalness. In his 
fearless way, he shouted it to the world. God 
gave him a sign; and before that sign he felt so 
sure, and at the same time so humbled, that he 
dared all on account of it, yet would have felt 
unworthy to stoop down and untie the leathern 
thongs that bound the sandals to the feet of his 
Master. "And yet he doubted/' we say; "even 
he grew uneasy and wondered if he might not 
have made a mistake!" 

Ah, who shall say how far the man's anxieties 
took shape in actual intellectual doubt? This 
appeal that comes from his dungeon for reassur- 
ance seems so clearly the result of fatigue and 
nervous depression and disappointment ! He had 
suffered such hard things! Nothing had come 

308 



QUESTION OF AN ANXIOUS SOUL 309 

out as he had expected. The great transforma- 
tion had not occurred. Where was "the king- 
dom of heaven/' which he had been instructed to 
declare was at hand ? Was not the world going 
on its accustomed way? He himself was in 
prison. He had done his utmost. Apparently 
he was forgotten. Was he mistaken ? We think 
it strange that this man should have felt de- 
pressed, or that his soul should have been shad- 
owed by doubt. As if we did not know what 
it is to weaken and become low-spirited when 
devotion seems unnoticed, and love is unrequited, 
and service apparently goes for nought, and 
standing by the truth seems to be in vain ! Any 
man who has been tried in his higher nature in 
any of these ways should understand how John 
in his prison might easily have been tormented 
with the question which kept asking itself in his 
soul: "Is it really true?" And yet, as indi- 
cating how in his heart of hearts he clung to the 
truth, let it not be forgotten, that when he would 
make an end of his doubt, it was to the Lord 
Himself that he instinctively turned. And the 
appeal was met in such a characteristic way! no 
remonstrance, no argument; a simple description 
of what the Lord was doing literally and spiritu- 
ally. The blessed work was going on just the 
same, even though His faithful forerunner was 
in prison. Happy the man who should not stum- 
ble over the truth of His life! And then when 
the messengers were gone away, He pronounced 



310 RELIGION AND LIFE 

that beautiful eulogy in which He emphasized 
the strength and rugged simplicity of the man 
by contrasting him with reeds swaying in the 
wind, and courtiers apparelled in soft clothing 
and living in kings' houses. 

The Lord emphasized and eulogized John's 
representative as well as his actual character. 
He was a man who stated the truth plainly, lit- 
erally, boldly. He dealt not with the inner mys- 
teries of religion, but with facts. He put forth 
these facts in language that was terse, tense, 
direct. The Lord commended this. His praise 
of John the Baptist was more than a personal 
one. It was as if He said: "It is a great thing 
to believe with all one's mind and heart the plain 
literal truths of spiritual life." 

The religious state of mind to-day is against 
this downright belief in the literal truths of the 
Word. Instead of commending it as our Lord 
did, the spirit of the age characterizes it as un- 
thinking and "old-fashioned." The truth that a 
man should look to God and be saved; that he 
must repent and literally and absolutely turn 
from selfish and evil ways, or he will be lost — 
what does "the spirit of the age" make of truths 
and warnings like these? Does it not have a 
way of representing them as "narrow," and those 
who utter them with boldness as "dogmatic" or 
''fanatical"? And has it not thrown into doubt 
the truth of a future life? John proclaimed with 
all his soul as a message from on high: "The 



QUESTION OF AN ANXIOUS SOUL 311 

kingdom of heaven is at hand." Just what that 
phrase meant for him, it may not be possible to 
declare; but that it meant a condition of life very- 
different from the one in which men were throw- 
ing away their lives in shams, and wrongs, and 
superciliousness, and corruptions is certain. The 
Lord reaffirmed that truth; disclosed the nature 
of the spiritual life by a series of matchless par- 
ables; brought life and immortality to light, and 
crowned and confirmed it all by His own resur- 
rection. To-day the average man is not certain ; 
and if there is a spiritual world he is not sure 
that it has been revealed; for is it not, he asks, 
a bourne from which the traveller does not 
return ? 

Take the great facts of spiritual life as they 
stand in the letter of God's Word, and there is 
scarcely one of them which men to-day, influ- 
enced by the spirit of the age, will accept without 
question. John the Baptist — taking him in his 
representative character as standing for the posi- 
tive truths of faith in the letter of the Word — is 
not in general favor. At first popular, there 
came a time when men said of him : "He hath 
a devil." They tired of the directness and the 
vehemence of his speech. They said, "He is 
gone mad." In days like these we show our dis- 
approbation in more refined, but none the less 
deadly ways. I am not saying that the age is 
irreligious. There is a great deal of religion; 
all kinds of religion — esoteric, pantheistic, mys- 



312 RELIGION AND LIFE 

tical, and then at the other end of the line the 
intensely practical and secular types. Every city 
paper has its "religious editor." Every maga- 
zine has its religious article. Irreligious ? Why, 
religion is one of the things most discussed ! He 
would be a wise man indeed who could give an 
account of all the religious cults that are flourish- 
ing, or trying to flourish, in any large city. But 
here is the point: With all this thought, and 
talk, and literature about religion, how far is the 
spirit of the age from the plain, positive truths of 
spiritual life set forth in the letter of God's 
Word, and for which the rugged ministry of the 
Baptist stands ? Men are willing to discuss them, 
to talk all around them: but to accept them in 
their naked simplicity? The personal God of the 
Bible; the Bible itself as a revelation of the 
mind of God; the Christ as the Word made 
flesh; the certainty of immortality, and of a 
heaven and of a hell; the sanctity of marriage, 
with but one cause for divorce ; the need of faith ; 
the need of prayer; the law that the character of 
our deeds is judged by the motives that actuate 
them; the warning that not all the culture, or 
personal charm, or popularity, or dispensing of 
benefactions can, one or all of them, make up for 
the loss of spirituality; that humility, which is 
another name for spiritual teachableness, is essen- 
tial to Christian character, and that without it 
one will never enter the kingdom of heaven, as 



QUESTION OF AN ANXIOUS SOUL 313 

the Lord's word is true, and all the intellectual 
exaltation and riches of knowledge if unsancti- 
fied will make it almost impossibly hard to in- 
herit eternal life? These are the truths of the 
letter of the Word of God. Nothing obscure 
about them. Any one may read and understand 
them. They are fundamental. Are they popu- 
lar? Are they accepted, as men accept facts of 
natural knowledge? Are they taught with posi- 
tiveness and without evasion? In our colleges, 
in clubs, on the street, in halls of legislation, in 
drawing rooms, are they honored as facts of life; 
or are they smiled at as teachings for simple 
minds unproved and unprovable? 

As the representative of these elementary 
truths of the letter of the Word, John the Baptist 
suffered hard things. Is not the situation simi- 
lar to-day ? And thus far I have not emphasized 
the greatest truth of all for which the ministry 
of this man of God stood out most boldly; the 
Christ. The letter of the Bible declares that Je- 
hovah God would become man's Redeemer and 
Saviour through incarnation. It is a tremendous 
truth. The Old Testament Scriptures represent 
it as central to everything else. John declared, 
"This is He." "Behold, the Lamb of God that 
beareth away the sins of the world !" And some 
of John's followers hunted up their companions 
and startled them with this announcement : "We 
have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and 



3H RELIGION AND LIFE 

the Prophets did write." The most astonishing 
fact in the history of the world if true. 

The New Testament is simply the unfolding 
of this supreme truth which is infolded in the 
Old. No fact has ever had its validity attested in 
so extraordinary a way as this fact of Jesus 
Christ. The prophecies are there, — clear, minute, 
unmistakable — and the Life, the Person who ac- 
tualized them is there. Promise and fulfilment, 
dream and reality are fully met. And yet how 
the mind of man will equivocate when challenged 
by this truth of the Incarnate Word ! "We con- 
clude/' says a writer — and he says this as if he 
were making an extraordinary confession — "we 
conclude that Jesus must have regarded Himself 
as in some form or other the Messiah, and must 
have imparted that conviction to others."* The 
Messiah in some form or other! That seems like 
such a strange, ungracious way of facing this 
central, persistent, exuberant truth of God's 
Word ! And it leads to such paltry conclusions : 
as that "Jesus never wished to be the Messiah;" 
that "He labored uncbr an insuperable inward 
difficulty in the matter;" that it filled Him with 
"a profound and almost timorous reserve;" that 
"it was a necessity, but also a heavy burden, 
. . . a conviction which He could never enjoy 
with a whole heart."** 

Herod put the Lord's faithful forerunner in 
prison, and with a fine show of regret ordered 

*Bousset, Jesus, p. 169. * !c pp. 123, 125, 180. 






QUESTION OF AN ANXIOUS SOUL 315 

that his head be cut off. Is the literal truth 
about Him as God-with-us treated in the same 
way to-day? How good to recall His reassuring" 
message to John: "Blessed is he who shall find 
no occasion of stumbling in Me!" 



5i.— THE RETURN OF THE SHEPHERDS. 
A Sermon for Christmas Day. 

"And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising 
God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it 
was told unto them." — Luke ii:20. 

A band of shepherds returning to the fields! 
A little group of men coming back to their 
sheep! Nothing illustrious about them. We 
know neither the name nor the lineage of a sin- 
gle one of them. For us their history is all 
condensed in the record of that one night. The 
first that we hear of them is that they were 
"abiding in the field, keeping watch over their 
flock by night." The last that we hear of them 
is that they returned to the field "glorifying and 
praising God for all that they had heard and 
seen." We find them watchful; we leave them 
jubilant. That night passes away; the first morn- 
ing of the Christian era dawns; but we never 
hear of them again. Our last glimpse is this 
sight of them coming back to their peaceful oc- 
cupation, with a great wonder in their minds 
and joy in their hearts. And the wonder and 
the joy made themselves felt. Every one whom 
they met was made to hear the news ; for a verse 

316 



THE RETURN OF THE SHEPHERDS 317 

says : "And they made known abroad the say- 
ing which was told them concerning this Child." 
They must have told their "good tidings of great 
joy" with such sincerity, such a look in their 
faces, such gladness in their voices, that men 
had to listen. For another verse declares : "And 
all they that heard, wondered at those things 
which, were told them by the shepherds." 

Happy shepherds ! the first to go out and bear 
witness to the Incarnate Lord! Humble, teach- 
able men, with your innocent faith, your trans- 
parent joy! Was the field the same to you, 
were the flocks the same to you, as you came 
back to them that night, "glorifying and prais- 
ing God?" Did they seem mean and paltry? 
Did you wish that you might escape from them ? 
Or did you come back strengthened in spirit, feel- 
ing that if an angel could speak to you, and a mul- 
titude of the heavenly host could sing for you, and 
the Christ-Child be seen by you, it was worth 
while to be a shepherd? Did you ever look up 
at the stars and not remember the vision that 
came and greeted you, and the voices which made 
your hearts stand still with the message that close 
by the Saviour of the world had come in the 
form of a little Child, just born, "wrapped in 
sw;addling clothes and lying in a manger?" In 
the raising of your sheep, in your trading or your 
selling, in your treatment of each other, did the 
truth which greeted you that night strengthen 
you ? Did it make you better shepherds ? Were 



3 i8 RELIGION AND LIFE 

there ever any "nights that know not God" after 
that night? 

Let us be glad that the veil is drawn over the 
personal life of these Bethlehem shepherds; that 
we know only of their quest and their return; 
and that instead of standing out as pattern men 
in the scene of the Nativity, they are there 
rather as types. The part they play is all the 
more suggestive because they themselves are so 
impersonal ; and the truth taught by their action 
is all the more easily to be learned and taken 
to heart because their movements are so simple. 
They watch their flocks, they hear the angels, 
they see the Child, they come back glorifying and 
praising God. The circle of their experience is 
thus complete. Any one can understand it; any 
one should be able to feel the beauty of it; any 
one might well wish for its spiritual fulfillment. 

For in the Gospel of the Nativity, as it keeps 
repeating itself in human experience, who are 
the shepherds ? They are the people everywhere, 
in every age, who, in true simplicity of spirit, 
care for what is good. They are men of good 
will, with what a writer has called "a little 
ecstasy of soul," who do justly, love mercy, and 
walk humbly with their God. The spiritual 
shepherd is the person, or the spirit, that tries to 
keep alive the love of what is pure and true; that 
prizes these things, stands up for them and tries 
to ward off any false or evil power that would 
scatter or destroy them. Shepherds? They are 



THE RETURN OF THE SHEPHERDS 319 

the men in any of the professions or occupations 
who go their daily rounds, doing their daily 
work, with the love of goodness in their hearts; 
who believe in doing to others as they would be 
done by; who would rather be poor than dis- 
honest; who value the good of their art, or their 
profession, or their business more than fame or 
sudden wealth, and who are not afraid to stand 
up for the honor of simple, gracious, truthful 
living against the sneers of the scornful or the 
rapacious greed of evildoers. Shepherds? They 
are the true souls everywhere who have a heart 
for other's misfortunes, and who love charity. 

And their flocks? They are the elements of 
goodness and charity, which, to such people, 
seem very real and precious, and for the sake of 
which they are willing to work and devote their 
life. 

Why do they watch their flocks by night? Be- 
cause for even the best meaning lives there are 
times of obscurity. It is not always sunshine 
about shepherds. The darkness comes. Some- 
times it comes through bereavement and smites 
the heart so sorely that all the joy of life, all the 
good of it seems lost; and life, which had been 
"wide and radiant," seems suddenly shrunken 
and draped in shadows. Sometimes it comes 
through grievous wrong, or series of wrongs; 
and trust in men is shaken, and faith in right- 
eousness seems mocked. Sometimes it is through 
failure: failure at the end of devoted efforts; 



3 2o RELIGION AND LIFE 

or, harder still, failure to do right, failure to 
stand true; that kind of failure which makes 
us cowards in our own eyes, and we feel hope- 
lessly beaten. Sometimes the darkness comes 
through a phase of unbelief. Perhaps we held 
our faith without much question, because with- 
out much thought. And then the darkness came 
— a vexing doubt at first, a miserable shadow; 
and the shadow broadened and deepened; and 
presently we were keeping watch over our flock 
by night. 

There is something beautiful and reassuring 
in the fact that the truth of the Lord Jesus was 
first made known to a band of shepherds. It is 
like saying: "This truth that the Lord is our 
Saviour should find a peculiarly warm response 
in the hearts of men of good-will. ,, For He, 
above all others, was a Good Shepherd. He was 
devoted to the spirit of love and charity. He 
preserved it through every possible form of mis- 
apprehension, ridicule, and wrong. With infinite 
zeal He stood up for it in others. Remember 
how He shielded the parents who brought their 
children for blessing; how He went aside with 
Zaccheus, when others sneered that He was 
gone to be guest with a man who was a sinner; 
how, to the disgust of the Pharisees, He sat 
down to meat with publicans ; how He defended 
the woman, who, with a new-born love of good- 
ness in her soul, knelt down and anointed His 
feet. 



THE RETURN OF THE SHEPHERDS 321 

To men of good-will, who, in times of obscur- 
ity, are trying to be spiritually watchful and 
faithful, the truth of the Incarnation should be 
a constant source of inspiration. For this is the 
essential meaning of it: Man's humble protec- 
tion of goodness is being met by an infinite 
power of protection; the Strong is come to the 
weak; the Helper is come to those who often 
feel themselves helpless; the Dayspring from on 
high is visiting those who sit in darkness and 
in the shadow of death, to guide their feet in 
the way of peace. 

It is frequently urged that people care but 
little to-day for the dogmatic side of religion. 
The foreground of human interest is, for the 
present, occupied by social and ethical problems : 
how man should live his life with his fellow- 
men ; what should be his attitude toward wealth ; 
what should be his standard of justice and of 
honor, if he holds positions of responsibility; 
what is the ideal for an earnest, well-meaning 
man, interested in his work and the welfare of 
his generation. 

"Never was there a time," writes a thought- 
ful student, "when plain people were less con- 
cerned with the metaphysics or ecclesiasticism 
of Christianity. The constructions of systems 
and the contentions of creeds, which once ap- 
peared the central themes of human interest, are 
now regarded by millions of busy men and 
women as mere echoes of ancient controversies, 



322 RELIGION AND LIFE 

if not mere mockeries of the problems of the 
present age."* 

May we not find a great deal of encourage- 
ment in this Christmas scene of the angels and 
the shepherds? The truth of Jesus Christ is 
first made known to men who stand for the life 
of charity. The first appeal of the most precious 
truth which any man can know is made to men 
of good- will. This means that there is no love 
of good which men cherish in their hearts that 
has not the love and the sympathy of the Lord 
Jesus, and that He honors it, trusts it, and relies 
upon it. 

This should cause us to cherish the truth with 
renewed confidence, and send us back to our field 
glorifying and praising God. After all, what 
deeper satisfaction can life yield than this: to 
have our field, which is our home, our Church, 
our occupation, some good cause to serve; to 
have hearts that are dear to us, and good uses 
to perform; to hear the message of the angel 
and believe that the Lord is near, that He is 
with us, and for us, and that the way of life 
He has revealed is sure; and then to return to 
our field glorifying and praising God for all 
that we have heard and seen, carrying the good- 
ness of it in our hearts, and the truth of it in 
our minds, becoming in His hands a means of 
joy, of comfort, and of grace; glad that He has 
called us, glad that He can send us. 

* Francis G. Peabody. 



52.— THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL. 

". . . It is a light thing for the shadow to go down 
ten degrees . . . but let the shadow return backward 
ten degrees." — 2 Kings xx. 10. 

A scene in the royal palace at Jerusalem. The 
good King Hezekiah is stricken with what ap- 
pears to be a fatal illness. By his side stands the 
prophet Isaiah. There seems to be no hope of 
recovery; and so the prophet says to him: "Set 
thine house in order; for thou shalt die and not 
live/' The royal sufferer turns his face to the 
wall and prays to the Lord. Read the thirty- 
eighth chapter of Isaiah, and see with what plain- 
tive tenderness he mourns this ebbing away of 
his life. Note the figures with which the king's 
grief is described. His tent is struck; the thread 
of life is severed; his cry is as the cry of a dying 
lion; his moan is as the plaint of a wounded 
dove. 

The prophet goes out. Presently he returns 
with the announcement that God has heard the 
prayer of the king and behold, He will heal him. 
This sickness shall not be unto death. Hezekiah 
turns to Isaiah and he asks, "What shall be the 
sign that the Lord will heal me?" And the 
prophet tells him that the Lord has given him 

323 



324 RELIGION AND LIFE 

leave to ask either that the shadow on the dial 
shall go forward ten degrees, or backward ten 
degrees. The king very naturally replies : "It is 
a light thing for the shadow to go down ten de- 
grees; nay, but let the shadow return back ten 
degrees." 

On the royal terrace below the king's window 
was the famous sun dial of Ahaz; a column cast- 
ing its advancing shadow on a long flight of 
steps, here called "degrees." As the sun declined, 
and the light fell obliquely, a shadow would be 
cast which would keep lengthening and darken- 
ing one step after another. Day by day the king 
had seen that shadow steal down those marble 
steps; and so he said, "It is a light thing for the 
shadow to go down ten degrees." But it would 
be a strange thing indeed — nay, he would be sure 
that God was answering him — if he could see the 
shadow return and uncover the steps it had dark- 
ened. Isaiah cried unto the Lord. Then as they 
watched, the shadow slowly returned; and ten of 
the steps which had been darkened were now 
lying in the sunlight. 

It has been maintained that a slight change 
in the density of the atmosphere, affecting the re- 
fraction of light, or an eclipse would easily ac- 
count for this return of the shadow on the dial of 
Ahaz. We do not profess to know. It certainly 
would be a pity to let the phenomenal character 
of this incident prevent us from deriving the 
spiritual lesson which it teaches. The Bible does 



THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL 325 

not hold it out to us as a lesson in optics, but as 
containing a lesson of life — a very beauti- 
ful and impressive lesson; a lesson of renewal 
when life seems to have run down, of healing 
when the soul is sick, of forgiveness when the 
shadows keep darkening our steps, of a great 
beneficent power that sets us to redeeming our 
past, and sets us to saying with joyful lips, "I 
shall not die but live, and declare the works of 
the Lord." Degeneration met by the still 
stronger power of regeneration; a downward 
drag overcome by a power of uplift — these are 
the phenomena in which this incident would 
arouse our interest. 

The power of recovery — how wonderful it is! 
Take any instance of it that we choose : the sick 
man on his bed, wasting away, the pulse growing 
feebler, the breathing quicker, the dim, sick look 
out of the eyes. How familiar it all is to one 
who has watched by a sick-bed! There is a 
certain awful naturalness about it, which seems 
to call upon us to surrender and say, "Remem- 
ber, this is the way of the flesh. What man is 
he that liveth and shall not see death?" Down 
creeps the long shadow upon the dial. Is it not 
right? Is it not the way? Is it not the slow 
wearing out of physical powers which were not 
meant to last, and the crumbling away of walls 
which were not meant to always stand? And 
then there comes a pause, a time of suspense. 
Will the shadow 7 go down another degree; or is 



326 RELIGION AND LIFE 

there a power of recovery which is setting in, 
causing an almost imperceptible change, a faint 
sense of increased vitality, "the gradual recov- 
ery of each deadened sense, the power to wield 
each languid limb,'' until presently the sufferer 
feels that the tide of life has really turned and 
is bearing him on to a state of recovery? 

And yet men die, we say. The tide does not 
always turn. The shadow does not always un- 
cover the steps it had darkened. Does not the 
strongest man become conscious of his weakness 
and mortality, and finally turn his face to the 
wall and give up his life? "My days," exclaims 
the Psalmist, "are like a shadow that declineth." 
There is something pathetically true here. There 
is a certain meridian in life, a point from which 
life begins to decline; when the forces of the 
body, however well preserved, lose something of 
their power; when that indescribable freshness 
which we feel upon the acts, the conversations, 
the personality of the young and middle-aged 
wears quietly away with the years, and it becomes 
in the nature of things for the shadow to go down 
on the dial ; to grow feebler rather than stronger, 
lines deepening, hairs whitening, the steps becom- 
ing heavier rather than lighter. "Three score 
years and ten" : the measure of a long earthly 
life. Suppose the shadow moves forward ten 
degrees, and life reaches four score years. It is 
only a lengthening of the shadow, a prolongation 
of years which must have their end. And so, in 



THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL 327 

the end, is not that power of recovery, which 
sometimes brings joy to a sick room, overcome 
at last? 

But unless we are confirmed materialists, is it 
not then that one of the most beautiful of all mir- 
acles takes place? We cannot, it is true, see 
what actually occurs after the eyes look at us for 
the last time in this world. But when sight ends, 
faith should begin; and faith, cheered and in- 
structed by revelation, declares that when this 
body of flesh is put by, and the spiritual man 
awakes in his spiritual body, that then the tide 
of existence sets in with its mysterious power of 
renewal, and the words of the risen Lord 
"though he were dead, yet shall he live" are won- 
derfully fulfilled. Then it is that he who has 
"died in the Lord," no matter how old, nor how 
feeble, nor how sick, nor how hindered he has 
been, begins to grow strong, and well, and free 
and young. And not only that : as it was natural 
for his powers to wane in this world the longer 
he lived, it now is natural for them to go "from 
strength to strength" the farther he advances into 
the heavenly life. Beauty deepens, the powers of 
mind and heart and hand become more and more 
perfect. To sum it up in the testimony of an 
illumined seer: "To grow old in heaven is to 
grow young." 

Perhaps we linger too long on the surface of 
our subject. For this power of recovery asserts 
itself in other and more spiritual ways. Take the 



328 RELIGION AND LIFE 

life of the Church as an example. Again and 
again it has seemed as if Christianity must per- 
ish. "It might have died outright of the public 
and astonishing wickedness of the Roman Court, 
in the tenth century/' declares a student.* "It 
might have been crushed out of being by the 
hordes of Islam in the first flush of their con- 
quests. It might have sunk beneath the ac- 
cumulated weight of corruption which invited 
the Reformation; it might have disappeared 
amidst the Babel of self -contradicting voices 
which the Reformation itself produced." "I am 
tired," Voltaire once said, "of hearing that it 
took only twelve men to set up Christianity in 
the world : I will show that it needs but one man 
to destroy it." And yet each reverse, each de- 
cline has been followed by renewal. We are liv- 
ing in one of these very periods now ; in an age 
which feels and calls itself "new." It is a light 
thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees ; but 
we are blind to the facts if we do not recognize 
the wonderful power which again and again 
turns the shadow back. 

This truth should be of great comfort to us in 
our individual life. For who or where is the 
man who has not felt his "days declining as a 
shadow?" Life has grown larger; has it grown 
steadily better? We know more than when we 
were children ; are we as trustful, are we as teach- 
able ? We fill a larger place, perhaps, than we did 

*Canon Liddon. 



THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL 329 

ten, fifteen, twenty years ago; are we morally 
stronger, are we humbler, are we less selfish? 
We glory in the fact of a larger life; but have 
we attained it without this shadow on the dial? 
Nothing outrageously evil, perhaps, to shock our 
fellowmen; but has there been no steady, "unre- 
mitted pressure of a downward force' ' upon the 
life, affecting its nobler parts, its truthfulness, 
its devotedness, its simplicity, its singleness of 
heart? Let us not be afraid to own that there is 
an influence which gravitates earthward. Some 
of us may to-day be saying in bitterness of spirit : 
"It is a light thing for the shadow to go down 
ten degrees/' Some of us, it may be, are feel- 
ing sick at heart, knowing that we are not free 
of selfishness, nor of worldly-mindedness and dis- 
content. Are we, then, like the king of old, to 
turn our face to the wall as if there were no 
hope ? Precisely that it is which we must not do. 
If there is a force which tends to make the 
shadow move forward, there is a diviner force 
which can turn it backward. That force is the 
pow r er of forgiveness. He who exerts it in all 
the fulness and graciousness of its strength is He 
who declared : "The Son of Man hath power on 
earth to forgive sins." 

The power to forgive. It is so wonderful, and 
the promise of it is so sure! And yet there is 
the sense of sin which is as a shadow that de- 
clineth. It reaches so many things ! The shadow 
lengthens so easily ! It is such a light thing for it 



330 RELIGION AND LIFE 

to go down ten degrees! The loves of self and 
the world have such a downward trend! We 
often say by way of excusing our evils: "It is 
human nature," meaning by this that it is natural 
for us to sin. Perhaps the thought of this comes 
to us with special force as we stand looking back 
over the year that is passed. Perhaps it will 
seem as if the shadow had gained a little. If that 
be true, the more need to turn to this other 
power, the power to forgive. 

Notice that this word "forgive," which our 
Lord claimed the right to use, and which He 
used so often, really means to drive away. To 
make this entirely clear, remember that when 
we read of our Lord sending the multitude away, 
precisely the same word is used which in other 
places is rendered "forgive;" so that the passage 
might really read : "When He had forgiven the 
multitude." To forgive means to send or drive 
away; and the wonderfulness of the Lord's na- 
ture is shown in nothing more beautifully and 
surely than this: that He has power on earth 
to send away sins. That is the glorious self- 
description of His redeeming work : to send sin 
away, to remove it out of the heart of the sin- 
ner and let him go free. He put forth a spirit 
of love and wisdom that was stronger than that 
of evil. "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be for- 
given thee." He was telling the man who had 
turned to Him in faith and longing that the 
power was come which would send away the evils 



THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL 331 

of his life. "Who can forgive (that is, who can 
drive away) sins but God only?" murmured the 
Pharisees. Precisely so. The power or life of 
God was there in its fulness, doing for that be- 
lieving man what it would have done for them 
had they not been so grace-hardened. 

See ! You rise on a summer's morning. The 
land is lying under a heavy cloud of mist. The 
meadows are hidden by it. It shrouds the for- 
ests. The sea itself is veiled, and only the boom- 
ing of the waves tells you it is there. It is a 
desolate sight; only that great cloud of vapor, 
making everything moist and gray. But look! 
The mist begins to waver. There is the faint 
outline of the lord of the forests and meadows. 
"It is brightening!" you cry. The trees, the 
fields, the shore of the sea, begin to reveal their 
outline. The struggle goes on; and presently, 
there go the cloud-mists, there shines the sun, 
there smile the meadows! It is the sun's for- 
giveness of the earth; driving away its clouds, 
setting it free! 

"Oh, Israel," cries a voice out of the Old Tes- 
tament, "I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy 
transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins!" There 
is our simile come true! the God of heaven shin- 
ing out upon our life and sending its sinfulness 
away ! 

How wonderful the fact is! how we should 
rejoice in it! how it should set us to glorifying 
God as it did the people of old ! This Divine Be- 



332 RELIGION AND LIFE 

ing standing out clear and simple as a powerful 
Saviour of sinful men and women — how com- 
forting it is to know that if we go to Him in 
faith, and confess our sins, and ask Him to help 
us to put them away, and make the effort, sin- 
cerely, earnestly, to obey Him, the power will be 
given to drive our sins away ! Slowly, surely the 
shadow on the dial will go back. 

This is not fancy. The Lord declares it ; Chris- 
tian experience confirms it. It is the most glorious 
truth in all the world. We spoke a moment ago 
of possible discouraging thoughts in looking back 
over the past year. Let them be swallowed up in 
this great fact of the divine forgiveness. Yes, 
there have been mistakes, and worse. We have 
not always made our religion a matter of life 
during the weeks that are gone as we had in- 
tended to do. But the shadow can be made to re- 
cede. A new year is before us; and here in our 
Lord is the power that can roll the shadow back 
and give us a clear start once more. For mercy 
so great, for opportunity so wide, let us be grate- 
ful to Him 

"Who forgiveth all our iniquities, 
Who healeth all our diseases ; 
Who redeemeth our life from destruction, 
Who crowneth us with lovingkindness and 
tender mercies ; 

Who satisfieth our desire with good things, 
So that our youth is renewed like the eagle." 



The grace, mercy and peace of our Lord and Sav- 
iour Jesus Christ, be upon you, and remain with you 
always. Amen. 



333 



DEC 6 1911 



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